Dynamis of the image. For an Archeology of Potentialities

- Closed project -

A research initiative co-sponsored by Collège d'études mondiales and Gerda Henkel Stiftung

A project directed by  Chiara Cappelletto et Emmanuel Alloa

The project Dynamis of the image aims at exploring the power of images in the contemporary globalized world by focusing not on the image’s referential functions, but on its performative forces. By asking by what means images generate affects, produce events or sometimes even provoke wars, the project critically reflects on the traditionally dominant Western paradigm of image thinking which has customarily reduced images to mere signifiers or inanimate objects. On the other hand, the project points toward a more encompassing perspective on images by including non-Western, premodern oder anthropological frameworks where the image has been reflected upon not in terms of its ontology, but in terms of its efficacy.

Workshop series :

  • Düsseldorf, Gerda Henkel Stiftung, June 11-12 2014
  • Basel, Eikones, December 2014
  • Paris, Collège d'études mondiales-FMSH, May 2015
Published at 16 December 2013