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The Mockumentary: History of a Deception. Perception, Image Consciousness, and Narrative Engagement
Full text linkThis article aims to investigate the documentary film image through the lens of phenomenological image theory. Specifically, it seeks to explore the genre of mockumentary, reflecting on the reasons behind the deception that lead the consciousness to believe that what it is seeing has really happened. In the phenomenological literature, the theme of deception has often been addressed through the case of hyperrealistic wax statues, which exemplify the typical perceptual misunderstanding of mistaking an image for a flesh-and-blood person. In contrast to the wax figures model, I argue that there is no perceptual deception in mockumentaries. On the contrary: mockumentaries work precisely because they do not attempt to deceive perception. Rather, the idea I propose is to interpret the deception of the mockumentary in terms of a narrative engagement of perception.This article aims to investigate the documentary film image through the lens of phenomenological image theory. Specifically, it seeks to explore the genre of mockumentary, reflecting on the reasons behind the deception that lead the consciousness to believe that what it is seeing has really happened. In the phenomenological literature, the theme of deception has often been addressed through the case of hyperrealistic wax statues, which exemplify the typical perceptual misunderstanding of mistaking an image for a flesh-and-blood person. In contrast to the wax figures model, I argue that there is no perceptual deception in mockumentaries. On the contrary: mockumentaries work precisely because they do not attempt to deceive perception. Rather, the idea I propose is to interpret the deception of the mockumentary in terms of a narrative engagement of perception
To Shudder in the Sign of Mimesis Towards a Recovery of Unreduced Experience in Theodor W. Adorno
Full text linkIn the last decades, an enthusiastic and undivided attention has been firmly dedicated to Adorno’s notion of mimesis. Highly enigmatic and resistant to an easy comprehension, this concept has often been regarded as a fundamental cornerstone of Adorno’s philosophy. In actual fact, the meanings and uses he has endowed the term with are so pervasive and diffuse that its imbrication in Adorno’s main philosophemes transcends the strict realm of art, showing a substantial entanglement between the aesthetic dimension and the epistemic, the anthropological and the social ones. More precisely, this paper aims to investigate his specific conception of mimesis as that faculty that could contribute to heal that historical process of experiential impoverishment that affects modern life. To the mimetic comportment Adorno associates a productive openness to the other that allows the subject to touch and to be touched by the object, without coercively subsuming it. Thereby, through a renewed interplay between mimesis and rationality, Adorno hopes to restore the possibility of a full and unreduced experience.In the last decades, an enthusiastic and undivided attention has been firmly dedicated to Adorno’s notion of mimesis. Highly enigmatic and resistant to an easy comprehension, this concept has often been regarded as a fundamental cornerstone of Adorno’s philosophy. In actual fact, the meanings and uses he has endowed the term with are so pervasive and diffuse that its imbrication in Adorno’s main philosophemes transcends the strict realm of art, showing a substantial entanglement between the aesthetic dimension and the epistemic, the anthropological and the social ones. More precisely, this paper aims to investigate his specific conception of mimesis as that faculty that could contribute to heal that historical process of experiential impoverishment that affects modern life. To the mimetic comportment Adorno associates a productive openness to the other that allows the subject to touch and to be touched by the object, without coercively subsuming it. Thereby, through a renewed interplay between mimesis and rationality, Adorno hopes to restore the possibility of a full and unreduced experience
Introduction Memory and the Aesthetic Region of Rhetoric
Full text linkWithin the historiographical and theoretical question of the relationship between aesthetics and rhetoric, according to which terms and concepts of aesthetics were also formed thanks to rhetoric, which circumscribes a perceptible and circumstantial sphere of reason, the present issue is dedicated to investigating a poietic idea of memory. Within this framework, the interest in memory and not imagination is legitimised precisely by the desire to analyse the productive capacity of rhetoric from the \u27inferior\u27 faculty that seems at first glance the least creative, since traditionally memory has an accumulative and conservative function. Instead, our intention is precisely to suggest, thanks to the contributions published here, how memory is not simply a place of storage, but a source of invention. A memory that is therefore the very condition of the creative act and of the passage from the already known to the possible new.
The issue is thus divided into two parts: the first deals with the specific topic of poietic memory, the second explores some aspects of the more general question of the relationship between aesthetics and rhetoric
Roger Bacon’s Ars poetica sacra: Spiritual Persuasion and the Christian Sublime
Full text linkRoger Bacon (d. ca. 1292) wrote extensively on rhetoric and poetics. He did so in the context of a critical overview of the religious culture of his age. He places poetry (the argumentum poeticum) at the very pinnacle of culture, above the sciences, above the liturgy and preaching, well above scholastic philosophy and any other mode of expression current in his age. Poetry and rhetoric are the modes of exposition capable of captivating and transporting the listener/reader. That makes them an effective means of converting and of inspiring faith. The religious culture of his own time has so far declined that it is incapable of performing this function. Bacon was looking back on real rhetorical practices that had become outmoded. In earlier days Christianity spoke with force and passion. His sacred poetics has a place in the history of pre-modern Christian discourse, one of two works theorizing sacra eloquentia; the other is Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine. Christian traditions of teaching, preaching, prayer, oratory, sacred music, regularly had called on modes that were emphatic, forceful and passionate: the “grand style,” sermo propheticus, sermo affectuosus. Bacon’s poetics commends these modes as it laments their passing.Roger Bacon (d. ca. 1292) wrote extensively on rhetoric and poetics. He did so in the context of a critical overview of the religious culture of his age. He places poetry (the argumentum poeticum) at the very pinnacle of culture, above the sciences, above the liturgy and preaching, well above scholastic philosophy and any other mode of expression current in his age. Poetry and rhetoric are the modes of exposition capable of captivating and transporting the listener/reader. That makes them an effective means of converting and of inspiring faith. The religious culture of his own time has so far declined that it is incapable of performing this function. Bacon was looking back on real rhetorical practices that had become outmoded. In earlier days Christianity spoke with force and passion. His sacred poetics has a place in the history of pre-modern Christian discourse, one of two works theorizing sacra eloquentia; the other is Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine. Christian traditions of teaching, preaching, prayer, oratory, sacred music, regularly had called on modes that were emphatic, forceful and passionate: the “grand style,” sermo propheticus, sermo affectuosus. Bacon’s poetics commends these modes as it laments their passing
Parte II: Noi, amanti d’essere, occhi del mondo
Full text linkThe task that awaits those who have noticed the devastation of the truth prevailing today lies in coming to terms with the illusory nature of the political proposals that European leaders formulated during the 20th century and which, despite their diversity, are based on a single interpretation of the sense of Being in terms of “nihilism”. Now, we do acknowledge that ample space has been reserved in the last fifty years to show the criminal nature of the fascist and Nazi projects, as well as the alienation that emblematically characterizes the liberal model, particularly in its American version. That is why it now proves extremely urgent to clarify the spiritual presuppositions that favored the disastrous advent of Bolshevism in the Soviet Union. Here is what E.E. Cummings set out to do during a trip made in the 1930s to Stalin’s Russia and whose ripest fruits the American poet collected in a very precious diary emblematically entitled Eimi (I am). Awakening a sense of Being thus becomes the escape route Cummings devised to bring Western man back into that dimension capable of renewing in each of us that need for rootedness, which guarantees the possibility of an authentic existence.The task that awaits those who have noticed the devastation of the truth prevailing today lies in coming to terms with the illusory nature of the political proposals that European leaders formulated during the 20th century and which, despite their diversity, are based on a single interpretation of the sense of Being in terms of “nihilism”. Now, we do acknowledge that ample space has been reserved in the last fifty years to show the criminal nature of the fascist and Nazi projects, as well as the alienation that emblematically characterizes the liberal model, particularly in its American version. That is why it now proves extremely urgent to clarify the spiritual presuppositions that favored the disastrous advent of Bolshevism in the Soviet Union. Here is what E.E. Cummings set out to do during a trip made in the 1930s to Stalin’s Russia and whose ripest fruits the American poet collected in a very precious diary emblematically entitled Eimi (I am). Awakening a sense of Being thus becomes the escape route Cummings devised to bring Western man back into that dimension capable of renewing in each of us that need for rootedness, which guarantees the possibility of an authentic existence
Digital Nihilism and Digital Humanism. An Aesthetic Genealogy
Full text linkThe aim of this paper is to describe in an introductory way the debate that was generated when digital culture emerged in the 1990s with the advent of the Web. It is possible to trace a genaology of values and aesthetic implications that produced at least two major factions: the nihilists and the humanists. Digital culture, yet another frontier of technological progress, was thus interpreted both as a critical erosion of content and as a possibility of collective development for humanity. The paper traces some famous positions (e.g. Bolter, Lévy, De Kerckhove, Flusser, Baudrillard) with the only purpose of mapping this debate that in fact leads back once again to the great Western theme of representation, mimesis.The aim of this paper is to describe in an introductory way the debate that was generated when digital culture emerged in the 1990s with the advent of the Web. It is possible to trace a genaology of values and aesthetic implications that produced at least two major factions: the nihilists and the humanists. Digital culture, yet another frontier of technological progress, was thus interpreted both as a critical erosion of content and as a possibility of collective development for humanity. The paper traces some famous positions (e.g. Bolter, Lévy, De Kerckhove, Flusser, Baudrillard) with the only purpose of mapping this debate that in fact leads back once again to the great Western theme of representation, mimesis
Dinanzi alle proprie macerie, rinati dalla rovina. Il disgusto nichilista nel cinema di Michael Haneke
Full text linkThe essay discusses the workings of disgust in Michael Haneke’s cinema. Beginning with major philosophical and psychoanalytic reflections and through innovative contemporary consideration, the categories of disgust in the director’s films are examined, taking as examples the most exemplary films in this regard and especially those that propose an idea of disgust as a mechanism for distancing the viewer and reflecting on contemporary nihilism.The essay discusses the workings of disgust in Michael Haneke’s cinema. Beginning with major philosophical and psychoanalytic reflections and through innovative contemporary consideration, the categories of disgust in the director’s films are examined, taking as examples the most exemplary films in this regard and especially those that propose an idea of disgust as a mechanism for distancing the viewer and reflecting on contemporary nihilism
The mimesis of everyday experience The influence on John Dewey’ Thought in American socially engaged art
Full text linkThe text aims to analyze the concept of “mimesis” as an artistic practice of transformation of the ordinary within the so-called “socially engaged” and “community-based art practices” in the United States since the 1990s. As a theoretical reference, the text explores the concept of experience expressed by the American philosopher John Dewey in his Art as Experience (1934), subsequently taken up by various curators and artists such as Mary Jane Jacob, Mark Dion and Pablo Helguera.
Since the 1990s, within the world of contemporary art a social and participatory trend has developed founding its place of action in the urban space and with marginalized communities as active participants. Given the collaborative attitudes, these actions soon took the name of practices moving away, even in a theoretical way, from public art and from any other type of authorial intervention in the public space. In the 2000s the critical discourse moved to the field of the value of social action (Kester, Bishop), or how to judge or not the artistry of a process that does not produce authorial works, has no spectators and takes place outside the artistic system proper. This is because these practices are based on an interdisciplinary theory which, moving from pedagogical and activist foundations, found in the thought of John Dewey its first moment of conjunction with artistic theory to the point of being recognized as a direct source for several artists and curators who worked between the 90s and 2000s. The geographical centre of this discourse is the United States as the role played by progressive education formalized in the early 1900s laid the foundations for an educational model that has also permeated artistic practice.The text aims to analyze the concept of “mimesis” as an artistic practice of transformation of the ordinary within the so-called “socially engaged” and “community-based art prac- tices” in the United States since the 1990s. As a theoretical reference, the text explores the concept of experience expressed by the American philosopher John Dewey in his Art as Experience (1934), subsequently taken up by various curators and artists such as Mary Jane Jacob, Mark Dion and Pablo Helguera.
Since the 1990s, within the world of contemporary art a social and participatory trend has developed founding its place of action in the urban space and with marginalized commu- nities as active participants. Given the collaborative attitudes, these actions soon took the name of practices moving away, even in a theoretical way, from public art and from any other type of authorial intervention in the public space. In the 2000s the critical discourse moved to the field of the value of social action (Kester, Bishop), or how to judge or not the artistry of a process that does not produce authorial works, has no spectators and takes place outside the artistic system proper. This is because these practices are based on an interdisciplinary theory which, moving from pedagogical and activist foundations, found in the thought of John Dewey its first moment of conjunction with artistic theory to the point of being recognized as a direct source for several artists and curators who worked between the 90s and 2000s. The geographical centre of this discourse is the United States as the role played by progressive education formalized in the early 1900s laid the foun- dations for an educational model that has also permeated artistic practice
Finding the conditio muliebris in Postmodernism: Mimetic exploration and aesthetic understanding of female nature
Full text linkThe paper addresses the exploration of women’s nature, intended as a peculiar conditio muliebris, focussing on woman artists that reflected on the female body with Postmodernist artistic means. Starting with an analysis of the theoretical propositions of Art Feminism practitioners such as Lucy Lippard, Valie Export, and Mary Kelly, who highlight the alterity of female nature and, thus, of woman’s art, the paper later discusses three art installations addressing bodily explorations by woman artists belonging to different generations: Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document (1973- 79), Mona Hatoum’s Corps étrangers (1994), and Sondra Perry’s Wet and Wavy Looks—Typhon coming on (2016). The paper argues that these installations substantiate the mentioned theoretical propositions and form a thread of bodily awareness that allows woman artists and the wider public to ascertain female nature by means of a fully aesthetic mimesis. The relationship between art and nature thus becomes one of mimetic exploration of the female body that leads to the acknowledgment of a gender-specific corporal feeling.The paper addresses the exploration of women’s nature, intended as a peculiar conditio muliebris, focussing on woman artists that reflected on the female body with Postmodernist artistic means. Starting with an analysis of the theoretical propositions of Art Feminism practitioners such as Lucy Lippard, Valie Export, and Mary Kelly, who highlight the alterity of female nature and, thus, of woman’s art, the paper later discusses three art installations addressing bodily explorations by woman artists belonging to different generations: Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document (1973- 79), Mona Hatoum’s Corps étrangers (1994), and Sondra Perry’s Wet and Wavy Looks—Typhon coming on (2016). The paper argues that these installations substantiate the mentioned theoretical propositions and form a thread of bodily awareness that allows woman artists and the wider public to ascertain female nature by means of a fully aesthetic mimesis. The relationship between art and nature thus becomes one of mimetic exploration of the female body that leads to the acknowledgment of a gender-specific corporal feeling
Il fallimento di una vita inabituale: Henry James e la costruzione della «nostra eroina» Isabel Archer
Full text linkThis article aims to raise crucial aspects of the philosophy of habit found in late 19th-century literature, particularly through an examination of Henry James’ portrayal of his character Isabel Archer. This goal is pursued through the analysis of two interconnected aspects forming the theoretical core of this contribution. Firstly, the focus is on Isabel Archer’s psychological depiction as a fundamental contribution of the English and American literature on the theme of habit, especially during the latter half of the 19th century. By contextualizing James’ work, exploring links to Peirce’s pragmatist philosophy and habit theory, the centrality of habit reflection in the psychological structuring of characters, interwoven with philosophical and narrative theories of individuality, is revealed. Furthermore, this reflection provides interpretative keys to understanding Henry James’ narrative choices concerning Isabel’s fate in the novel. Then this article directly specifically examines the construction of Isabel’s self which unfolds through the entire narrative events. The interpretative hypothesis guiding the investigation focuses on the connection between Isabel’s attempts to conduct life without habit and the resulting errors in judgment. To support this hypothesis, the importance of comparing key characters such as Gilbert Osmond and Madame Merle is highlighted. Through the narrative, it will emerge a peculiar ontological structure of the concept of habit. Moreover, through the psychological portraits in the novel, a critical exploration of James’ idea of individuality arises — acknowledging social dynamics and the ontological force of habit, rejecting the dichotomy represented by an optimistic individualism and a degenerate conventional life. The conclusion asserts that Isabel’s pursuit of an unhabitual life inevitably leads to failure. The solution does not lie in a rigid, conventional, dichotomous view of habit. Instead, James argues for a dynamic, relational view of habit: a fundamental aspect of being that must be acknowledged to understand the mechanisms that lead us from the variety of possibilities to the limited “actualities” of life. Through these two interrelated perspectives, the article aims to illuminate the psychological depth of Isabel Archer’s character, demonstrating how her story represents a cornerstone in the broader discussion of the nature and evolution of habit in 19th- century literature. From that, it sets the stage for a more comprehensive discussion on habit’s role in shaping characters and narratives during this historical period.This article aims to raise crucial aspects of the philosophy of habit found in late 19th-century literature, particularly through an examination of Henry James’ portrayal of his character Isabel Archer. This goal is pursued through the analysis of two interconnected aspects forming the theoretical core of this contribution. Firstly, the focus is on Isabel Archer’s psychological depiction as a fundamental contribution of the English and American literature on the theme of habit, especially during the latter half of the 19th century. By contextualizing James’ work, exploring links to Peirce’s pragmatist philosophy and habit theory, the centrality of habit reflection in the psychological structuring of characters, interwoven with philosophical and narrative theories of individuality, is revealed. Furthermore, this reflection provides interpretative keys to understanding Henry James’ narrative choices concerning Isabel’s fate in the novel. Then this article directly specifically examines the construction of Isabel’s self which unfolds through the entire narrative events. The interpretative hypothesis guiding the investigation focuses on the connection between Isabel’s attempts to conduct life without habit and the resulting errors in judgment. To support this hypothesis, the importance of comparing key characters such as Gilbert Osmond and Madame Merle is highlighted. Through the narrative, it will emerge a peculiar ontological structure of the concept of habit. Moreover, through the psychological portraits in the novel, a critical exploration of James’ idea of individuality arises — acknowledging social dynamics and the ontological force of habit, rejecting the dichotomy represented by an optimistic individualism and a degenerate conventional life. The conclusion asserts that Isabel’s pursuit of an unhabitual life inevitably leads to failure. The solution does not lie in a rigid, conventional, dichotomous view of habit. Instead, James argues for a dynamic, relational view of habit: a fundamental aspect of being that must be acknowledged to understand the mechanisms that lead us from the variety of possibilities to the limited “actualities” of life. Through these two interrelated perspectives, the article aims to illuminate the psychological depth of Isabel Archer’s character, demonstrating how her story represents a cornerstone in the broader discussion of the nature and evolution of habit in 19th- century literature. From that, it sets the stage for a more comprehensive discussion on habit’s role in shaping characters and narratives during this historical period