Abstract
This paper explores the intersection of iconicity and operative images, tracing the genealogy of the image through the lens of modernity’s multivalent agencies. It delves into the works of Stan Brakhage, a filmmaker who challenged the narrative structures and linguistic consciousness that modernity imposed on art, by juxtaposing his theory of the image with that of Harun Farocki, specifically, his work on operative images. Farocki once formulated the perversion of cinema in this way: it “translates most sensations of touch into glances.” This experience of auto-affection as disembodied haptic hallucination is a deeply ambiguous phenomenon that implicates the ghostliness of operative images. Documentary images are host to such ghost effects: in their sensorium of proprioception without bodily presence, image turns into an apophatic body, something ghostly and somehow unreal. Farocki’s exploration of the editing table as a site where rhetoric transforms babble into meaningful discourse in that film serves as a foundational concept. Through his lens, the editing process becomes a metaphorical conjuration, where images gain autonomy and comment on their own existence. Farocki’s critique of journalistic images highlights the distinction between disposable illustrations and those that possess documentary value, emphasizing the importance of images that capture processes rather than predetermined narratives. Through spatial reconfiguration across multiple screens and practices that disrupt traditional notions of narrative continuity, Farocki and Brakhage’s works teach us much about the fate of the image in our oversaturated, image-besotted milieu.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Documentary images; Iconicity; Proprioception; Operative images
