In the paper, we try to elucidate the procedures that need to be applied if we want to establish the consequences that occur when the sediments of meaning in images are deposited on top of each other, creating a specific pictorial epistemology. We will point out some interdisciplinary mechanisms of image analysis, such as “cultural symptomatology” and “cultural triangulation”, together with drawing a typology of cultural-historical sediments of pictorial meaning that we call appropriation. We conclude that Bredekamp’s theory of image (...) acts, as well as Mitchell’s concept of pictures as “desiring objects” and Belting’s consideration of the human body as “image media”, suggest that the interaction between a human and an image is a mirror of human’s own desire to produce a parallel world in which, as Lambert Wiesing explained, he or she does not have to participate. The image allows for different forms of participation or absence from participation in the event represented in the image. Therefore, what images “know” is a specific consequence of the fact that inanimate pictorial objects can possess memory but – unlike artificial intelligence – can activate their knowledge only in a reciprocal communicative relationship with people. (shrink)

The proliferation of digital technology has changed our visual perception and the way we interpret terms such as 'representation', 'immersion', and 'virtuality'.0Kresimir Purgar examines some of the topics fundamental to an understanding of the contemporary culture of images. The principal thesis of this volume is that we are witnessing the transitional period of images as not-representation-anymore and not-yet-immersion. Instead of just asking what images mean, we should ask ourselves what images are, how they appear, and what they do to us. (...) The author proposes the comprehensive concept of "pictorial appearing" that takes into account phenomenological, semiotic, and art-historical perspectives on both old and new images. (shrink)