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Images of popular demigods and minor deities are shown to dominate the decoration of early Buddhist sites to the exclusion of almost any other subject matter. In particular, an iconographic study of the remains of the monastery from Bharhut reveals a process of superimposition wherein the spirit‐deities have been moved to the periphery of the sacred space and the center is reserved for the Buddhist relic alone. When this information is coupled with new evidence demonstrating that these monasteries were largely built over locations (like cemeteries and hills) that were understood as being the abodes of specific minor deities, it becomes clear that the Buddhist community is making a potent statement of religious authority though its architecture. Significantly, this hierarchy expressed in sculpture parallels the claims of authority made in the legendary literature.

Alfred Gell was widely regarded as one of the most interesting thinkers in the world in the field of the anthropology of art. His life and writings provide an interesting insight into the fashions and flows of one part of British thought in the later 20th century. While Gell will be remembered as the author of the classic ethnography on the Umeda and a splendid survey of theories of time, it is the work on art and anthropology, undertaken during the last twelve years of his short life, which will determine his wider reputation. This consists of three books. The first, and only one published during his life was Wrapping in Images: Tattooing in Polynesia (1992). The second in order of writing, though not of publication, was a collection of his essays, mostly given as seminar papers and lectures, published in 1999 as The Art of Anthropology; Essays and Diagrams and edited by Eric Hirsch. The final work was Art and Agency, An Anthropological Theory (1998).

This chapter comprises brief commentaries by seven authors with long-standing and formative roles in studies of representational practice. Lorraine Daston speaks of intractable conceptual problems associated with the very idea of representation and argues that we need to shift from epistemological to ontological treatments of images. Michael Lynch reflects on the ways in which philosophical pictures hold us captive, in earlier times with respect to reference, and more recently with respect to information. Steve Woolgar looks back on various attempts to problematize and displace the notion of representation since the publication of the earlier volume. Lucy Suchman calls for a greater measure of reflexivity in our studies of representation, to understand what exclusions we generate through our own practices of articulating and bounding the phenomena we study. John Law asks us to attend to the “collateral realities” that are being “done” at the periphery of what representation in scientific practice is ostensibly about. Martin Kemp discusses how visual images and graphics are used to evoke “reality,” as though directly on the page or screen. Bruno Latour argues that the supposed “gap” between previously unknown realities and visual images is densely populated by “long cascades of successive traces.” These seven short pieces comment on the nature and prospects of studies of representation in general. In this vein, they reference the “big” themes of representation— for example, epistemology, ontology, visualization, and trust. The commentaries thus provide an interesting complement to the empirical case studies in the book. Whereas the latter deliver a crucial deflationary effect— “science” is brought down to earth, made commonplace and subject to epistemic leveling; the “elevator words” in philosophy of science are unloaded at the ground floor (Hacking 1999, 21ff)— these final commentaries remind us about the traps, troubles, and taken-for-granted assumptions that continue to characterize even the very best empirical studies of representational work. Reference Hacking, Ian. 1999. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Using new commentary from the people behind the lens blended with revealing photographs, this chapter examines the visual narrative of Bitches Brew. Although the sessions were never shot, Miles Davis was photographed just about everywhere else at the time, whether it was on stage, at home, at the gym, or driving around New York in his Ferrari. Despite his shy and difficult demeanor, Davis had a warm and sincere relationship with the camera and the people behind it. These photographers were not only able to document this period in Davis’s life, but were also able to unveil a whole other side of him.

This chapter explores how the emotional dimensions of witnessing human hardship play a key role in shaping humanitarian practices. While images of suffering have evoked a range of emotions, contemporary commentators lament that a “politics of pity” fuels Western humanitarian practices. Even if it could seem a recent phenomenon, these emotions have a history. This chapter examines the emergence of humanitarian emotions by linking early modern depictions of suffering with contemporary media images of crises. Furthermore, it analyses how representing distant suffering has led to a “politics of pity.” Exposing the contingency of such emotions, this chapter concludes by emphasizing how feelings hold immanent possibilities for political transformations.

This chapter introduces the importance of text and images of writing for feminist art practices in the late 1960s and 1970s. Beginning with the 2008 exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, it demonstrates that an engagement with language was a significant part of women artists’ efforts to resist the ways in which late-twentieth-century visual culture reinforces the idea that women should serve as the other of patriarchal culture. The introduction presents the three artists who are the focus of the book – Adrian Piper, Nancy Spero, and Mary Kelly – and argues that the ‘writerly’ qualities of the artwork they produced in the 1970s undermines the visual dominance of spectacle culture and the production of woman as a sign that represents passivity and sexual availability. The introduction also makes a case for pairing the artwork of Piper, Spero, and Kelly with the writings of Angela Davis, Valerie Solanas, and Laura Mulvey. In aligned historical contexts, these writers also addressed the limited range of images through which women were allowed to appear, and thereby suggest what it means to receive the artwork’s call to other women to collaborate on the project of creating a feminist imaginary.

Combining narratives of success and community with imagery and maps characterises and regulates Manchester’s Gay Village as a distinct, bordered, hedonistic and particularly tolerant place. This chapter describes the use of collaboratively produced graphic stories, created using combinations of drawings, text, photographs and found images. These 'ethno-graphics' describe lived experiences of men seeking sex in public and engaging in exchanges of intimacy, money, goods and services that challenge the master narratives of that are openly recognised and spoken about in the village.

This chapter focuses on Manchester city centre to argue that exploring the futures that different stakeholders envisage for the city centre reveals tensions that are otherwise glossed over. Critically engaging with urban futures as they are mobilised by institutional stakeholders, and eliciting those that other actors envisage, highlights whose interests are currently being prioritised and whose are traded off. Engaging in an analysis of these urban futures reveals not only important tensions connected to future developments and imagined uses of the city centre, but also opens up to scrutiny the present experiences and uses of the city centre, and the competing interests that a range of actors currently have.

This chapter charts the evolution of a right to privacy to a “right of publicity” in US law and argues that if a right to privacy is recognized as a doctrine primarily used by women to control their images, the development of a right of publicity was a logical extension that accorded with women’s increasing participation in the paid work force. In the 1930s, women found new career opportunities in the emerging visual arts industries as dancers, models and actors and a right to privacy was employed by professional women to protect and profit from what Liz Conor has termed their “techniques of appearing”. It is in this context that a right to privacy’s racial dimensions are best examined, particularly the case of Myers v African American Publishing Co involving a claim by a young “tribal” dancer from Harlem who successfully sued over the publication of professional photographs that had been doctored to emphasise her nudity. A right to privacy was also invoked by men to protect their professions of performance (as golfers, bullfighters, boxers and ball players) and despite numerous early cases brought by professional women, it was in this masculine context that “a right of publicity” was first articulated.

The introduction expands on the rationale, aim and layout of the book. It also the develops the core concepts of the book, such as image, art world, borderlands, and image ecology. The notion ‘art world’ emphasizes that the distinctions between art and non-art are constructed by diverse agents and institutions. Moreover the term ‘borderlands’ is used to defy the idea that there is a definite demarcation or border between what is ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of the art world. The term image ecology serves as a metaphor for a desire to understand the interrelationships of things such as the nature of change, adaption and community and as a way to locate how and why images operate in certain ‘environments’ or systems of meaning. Finally the introduction posits the book in the long tradition of image studies and also in recent development within media studies, particularly studies on mediatization and media archaeology.

Janet Wolff’s concluding chapter for Beyond text? identifies the academic trends behind the aesthetic attitudes towards the celebration of the image and image making in the humanities as: the turn to ‘affect’; the (re)turn to phenomenology (and post-phenomenology); actor-network theory in sociology and science studies; theories of the post-human; theories of materiality; emphasis on the agency of objects; the insistence on ‘presence’ as an unmediated encounter’. Wolff goes on to make the case for a certain caution in relation to tendencies to abandon too hastily the solidities of cultural and sociological theory. The theoretical turns that Wolff describes, suggests that while there may be opportunities for opening up and engaging with the senses in anthropological enquiry there are dangers to be had in the diminishment or loss of a critical attitude and social perspective.

In the introduction the editors outline the concept of image operations, illustrate its relevance and consider the empirical, theoretical, and ethical questions that arise from it. They also discuss the basic relations between images, media, agency, and conflict. As the subject lies at the intersection of several disciplines, they survey the literature, point towards the blind spots in existing research, and conclude with a summary of each contribution.

Anti-abortion protesters sometimes use graphic images of mangled fetuses and animal rights activists sometimes use graphic images of tortured animals to impress upon the general public the violence that lurks behind their choices. This tactic should be used sparingly, however, both because it may traumatize the viewers and because it could be counterproductive by desensitizing them to the violence.

In “Representational Genera,” Haugeland built an account of representational kinds around the structures of their contents. Icons, which include pictures, images, graphs, and diagrams, differ from logical representations like linguistic expressions because iconic contents are essentially patterns of dependent and independent variables. Such structures are absent in language. Recording is a witless, replayable process that Haugeland deployed to calm worries about his content-wise account of representational genera. This paper elevates recording from the supporting role Haugeland gave it to star of the show. The main claim defended here is that some kinds of representation—pictures, images, graphs, diagrams—are modeled by recording processes, while others, like languages, are not. Extensionally, this distinction is close to Haugeland’s, but it is intensionally subtler, more plausible, and, as I hope to show, more useful. This approach abandons Haugeland’s goal of distinguishing representational kinds exclusively in terms of their contents, but there are many advantages to doing so.

The film and video works of Harun Farocki exemplify a critical media practice that pose the questions: What is an Image?, or better, What is a human image? Much of Farocki’s mature work examines in fascinating ways the proliferation of nonhuman perspectives and spaces in the contemporary image environment, and in each case, Farocki asks viewers to reconsider how images provoke both an intelligence and ethics of seeing. Examples are drawn from three of Farocki’s best known works, Inextinguishable Fire, Images of the World and the Inscription of War, and the four-part video installation, Serious Games. The account then turns to the late writing of T. W. Adorno to argue that a deep engagement with the variety of Farocki’s work retroactively gives force and clarity to the style of emancipated cinema that Adorno was trying to imagine in essays like “Transparencies on Film.” The claim here is that Farocki’s work was an ongoing and open-ended experimentation of what a critical writing in images could look like under different media conditions, both historically and formally, especially in relation to his strategies of dissociative and recombinatory montage.