Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and Conflict
This introduction takes as its central armature Karen Barad’s agential realism to provide a framework for understanding the essays brought together in this Special Issue under the rubric of pictures of conflict. The intention is to move the discussion with regard to picture making forward to more fu...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2020-05-01
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| Series: | Humanities |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/9/2/44 |
| _version_ | 1797567315056787456 |
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| author | Jim Aulich Mary Ikoniadou |
| author_facet | Jim Aulich Mary Ikoniadou |
| author_sort | Jim Aulich |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This introduction takes as its central armature Karen Barad’s agential realism to provide a framework for understanding the essays brought together in this Special Issue under the rubric of pictures of conflict. The intention is to move the discussion with regard to picture making forward to more fully embrace the pictorial and the physical, the historical and institutional processes within apparatuses of picture-making. The attempt in ‘Ghost stories’ through the concept of a visual apparatus, is to shed new light and thinking on pictures as material objects; how they act and feed into our subjectivities, experiences and realities and to account for their currency, duration, affectivity and authority beyond transparent representation or symbolic meaning. In order to achieve this, Barad’s agential realism is inflected by insights from Malafouris’s (2013) material engagement theory; W.J.T. Mitchell’s (2005) image theory; Jens Eder and Charlotte Klonk’s (2017) image operations; Mondzian’s (2005) understanding of the economy of the image, as well as the ontological concerns of new German art history and image science exemplified in the work of Hans Belting (1996, 2011) and Horst Bredekamp (2017), for example. In this framework, the worlds pictures create, and the subjectivities they produce, are not understood to precede the phenomena they depict. The picture, as the outcome of the apparatus which produces it, makes an ‘observational cut’ that simultaneously excludes and includes certain elements from its frame. As such, it has to be comprehended as party to processes which are both ethical and political. A fact which is particularly important during times of conflict and war. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T19:40:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-c06b4766988a4e76a6c02d30dd2a4d6c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-0787 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T19:40:03Z |
| publishDate | 2020-05-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Humanities |
| spelling | doaj.art-c06b4766988a4e76a6c02d30dd2a4d6c2023-11-20T01:22:16ZengMDPI AGHumanities2076-07872020-05-01924410.3390/h9020044Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and ConflictJim Aulich0Mary Ikoniadou1Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, Lower Ormond St., Manchester M15 6BH, UKSchool of Art, Design and Fashion, University of Central Lancashire, The Media Factory, ME201, Kirkham St., Preston PR1 1JN, UKThis introduction takes as its central armature Karen Barad’s agential realism to provide a framework for understanding the essays brought together in this Special Issue under the rubric of pictures of conflict. The intention is to move the discussion with regard to picture making forward to more fully embrace the pictorial and the physical, the historical and institutional processes within apparatuses of picture-making. The attempt in ‘Ghost stories’ through the concept of a visual apparatus, is to shed new light and thinking on pictures as material objects; how they act and feed into our subjectivities, experiences and realities and to account for their currency, duration, affectivity and authority beyond transparent representation or symbolic meaning. In order to achieve this, Barad’s agential realism is inflected by insights from Malafouris’s (2013) material engagement theory; W.J.T. Mitchell’s (2005) image theory; Jens Eder and Charlotte Klonk’s (2017) image operations; Mondzian’s (2005) understanding of the economy of the image, as well as the ontological concerns of new German art history and image science exemplified in the work of Hans Belting (1996, 2011) and Horst Bredekamp (2017), for example. In this framework, the worlds pictures create, and the subjectivities they produce, are not understood to precede the phenomena they depict. The picture, as the outcome of the apparatus which produces it, makes an ‘observational cut’ that simultaneously excludes and includes certain elements from its frame. As such, it has to be comprehended as party to processes which are both ethical and political. A fact which is particularly important during times of conflict and war.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/9/2/44warconflictpicture theoryimage theoryagential realismpostwar |
| spellingShingle | Jim Aulich Mary Ikoniadou Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and Conflict Humanities war conflict picture theory image theory agential realism postwar |
| title | Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and Conflict |
| title_full | Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and Conflict |
| title_fullStr | Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and Conflict |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and Conflict |
| title_short | Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and Conflict |
| title_sort | ghost stories for grown ups pictorial matters in times of war and conflict |
| topic | war conflict picture theory image theory agential realism postwar |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/9/2/44 |
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