È possibile costruire in riferimento all’assetto della cultura visiva contemporanea un discorso analogo a quanto proposto da Erwin Panofsky nel suo scritto del 1927, al cui titolo questo saggio dichiaratamente si ispira? Le argomentazioni di questo saggio tentano di abbozzare una risposta affermativa, legittimandola in seno ai rapporti che intercorrono oggigiorno tra l’arte, l’estetica e i nuovi media.

The paper focuses on the elaboration of the mandatum ad delinquendum by the late medieval criminal law scholars. Their theory, that became communis opinio and was largely applied by the courts, was based on the representation of this crime as a conceptual unity including the illegal behaviors of both the principal in a crime and the agent, and was grounded on the logical correlative argument. It allowed the judge to punish both the criminals, i.e. the person who contrived the crime and the one who carried it out, with the same penalty and to apply the same aggravating circumstances to the connected criminal behaviors. Due to the spread of this crime, this theory, which was criticized from the Enlightenment onwards, granted the public power a more effective repressive tool.

This essay concerns the devices that oversaw the functioning of the criminal asylum in the Thirties. A device which for many decades has made every single story possible, but that in its abstract form could collect stories a thousand times similar to those which it really picked up. A non-anthropomorphic social subject that does not appear in relation to the concrete individuals, but that classifies and gathers individuals who are actually necessary for its operation. In this way the living being remains entangled in the bloodless simulacra of classifications. A true prodigy: it is as if the asylum had reflected on a plate not for show, but to silence – in their ephemeral lives – men of flesh and blood who gathered every day for the needs of Science and the urgency of Security. What pulses under the bare surface is revealed only indirectly, through a determined symptomatology. To violate the seal of secrecy and cunning of the machine this essay looks for an analytical research of madness and psychiatric power.

manicomio criminale, OPG, REMS, cosa sono, elettroschok, servono sul serio?

Introduction to Raccontare il manicomio. La macchina narrativa di Basaglia fra parole e immagini