D. N. Rodowick
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226513058
- eISBN:
- 9780226513225
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226513225.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
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 ...
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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.Less
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.
L. W. C. van Lit
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474415859
- eISBN:
- 9781474435024
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415859.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
The chapter discusses how Shahrazūrī developed Suhrawardī’s ideas further. First, this thirteenth century thinker from presumably the border region of present day Iraq and Iran is introduced, paying ...
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The chapter discusses how Shahrazūrī developed Suhrawardī’s ideas further. First, this thirteenth century thinker from presumably the border region of present day Iraq and Iran is introduced, paying especial attention to the intertextuality and chronology of his writings. The other sections discuss respectively how Shahrazūrī established his own interpretation, and what that interpretation exactly entails. The how-section details the move from technical term ‘suspended images’, which served an epistemological function, to the term ‘world of image’, which serves a cosmological function. The fact that his main argument is repeated four times in three different works attests to the importance of it for Shahrazūrī’s thinking. The what-section is divided into six topics: the name that Shahrazūrī gives for this world, the position he gives it within the cosmos, the topography of this world, the role it play for eschatology, and finally the assurance of its existence and attribution of the idea to ancient philosophy.Less
The chapter discusses how Shahrazūrī developed Suhrawardī’s ideas further. First, this thirteenth century thinker from presumably the border region of present day Iraq and Iran is introduced, paying especial attention to the intertextuality and chronology of his writings. The other sections discuss respectively how Shahrazūrī established his own interpretation, and what that interpretation exactly entails. The how-section details the move from technical term ‘suspended images’, which served an epistemological function, to the term ‘world of image’, which serves a cosmological function. The fact that his main argument is repeated four times in three different works attests to the importance of it for Shahrazūrī’s thinking. The what-section is divided into six topics: the name that Shahrazūrī gives for this world, the position he gives it within the cosmos, the topography of this world, the role it play for eschatology, and finally the assurance of its existence and attribution of the idea to ancient philosophy.
L. W. C. van Lit
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474415859
- eISBN:
- 9781474435024
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415859.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This book traces the notion of a world of image from its conception until today. This notion is one of the most original innovations in medieval Islamic philosophy, and is unique compared to other ...
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This book traces the notion of a world of image from its conception until today. This notion is one of the most original innovations in medieval Islamic philosophy, and is unique compared to other parts of the history of philosophy. The notion originated out of discussions on the fate of human beings after death; would this be spiritual only or physical as well? The world of image suggests that there exists a world of non-physical (imagined) bodies, beyond our earthly existence. This world may be entered after death and glimpses of it may already be witnessed during sleep or meditation. Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037) was the first to suggest something along these lines, arguing that people could simply imagine their afterlife without the need for it to be actually physical. Suhrawardī (d. 1191) included this suggestion in his innovative thinking on epistemology, known as ‘knowledge by presence’, without fully ontologizing it. Shahrazūrī (d. > 1286), finally, turned Suhrawardī’s thinking into the full-blown notion of a world of image. Notably through Taftāzānī (d. 1390) and Shaykh Bahāʾī (d. 1621), the idea gained wider popularity and continued to be discussed, especially in Shīʿī circles, up to this day. This book gives an insight into late medieval and early modern Islamic philosophy, especially the role of commentary writing. It sets the record straight for the provenance and development of the world of image and reconsiders the importance of Suhrawardī for the development of philosophy in the Islamic world.Less
This book traces the notion of a world of image from its conception until today. This notion is one of the most original innovations in medieval Islamic philosophy, and is unique compared to other parts of the history of philosophy. The notion originated out of discussions on the fate of human beings after death; would this be spiritual only or physical as well? The world of image suggests that there exists a world of non-physical (imagined) bodies, beyond our earthly existence. This world may be entered after death and glimpses of it may already be witnessed during sleep or meditation. Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037) was the first to suggest something along these lines, arguing that people could simply imagine their afterlife without the need for it to be actually physical. Suhrawardī (d. 1191) included this suggestion in his innovative thinking on epistemology, known as ‘knowledge by presence’, without fully ontologizing it. Shahrazūrī (d. > 1286), finally, turned Suhrawardī’s thinking into the full-blown notion of a world of image. Notably through Taftāzānī (d. 1390) and Shaykh Bahāʾī (d. 1621), the idea gained wider popularity and continued to be discussed, especially in Shīʿī circles, up to this day. This book gives an insight into late medieval and early modern Islamic philosophy, especially the role of commentary writing. It sets the record straight for the provenance and development of the world of image and reconsiders the importance of Suhrawardī for the development of philosophy in the Islamic world.
