Pathosformeln

Nacidos a finales del siglo XX, los GIFs han regresado de la mano de las redes sociales. No son un simple formato de compresión sino una imagen intermedial. Un fenómeno cultural que condensa en su breve existencia y simplicidad técnica una serie de elementos propios de la cultura visual contemporánea. A simple vista pueden resultar imágenes sin ninguna importancia, meros residuos fragmentarios de la comunicación en la era digital. Pero si consideramos el incremento exponencial del intercambio de GIFs en internet en los últimos años debemos asumir que son más que un simple divertimento. Ya sean consideradas imágenes pobres, conversacionales, intermediales, banales o artísticas, conforman un conjunto disperso y fragmentario que responde al principio de clonación y réplica de la imagen digital. Sitios como GIPHY o Tumbrl acumulan colecciones que no paran de crecer. El archivo de la visualidad global es ofrecido como materia privilegiada para figurar las emociones. ¿Por qué estas imágenes parecen condensar expresiones, sentidos y emociones universalmente compartibles?  De qué modo la repetición de estos actos de inscripción mimética incorporan en nuestro cuerpo hábitos y expresiones. Desde los más simples y masivos hasta el GIF ART, el GIF-ITI o los implantes del Net Art este artefacto visual es uno de los protagonistas indiscutibles de la cultura visual 2.0. Sus particularidades técnicas, sus modos de existencia en la red hasta sus expresiones artísticas y creativas, pueden ser un medio de expresión y reiteración de emociones, un objeto anestesiante o un juguete óptico y reflexivo. Las plataformas que los albergan son  un gran síntoma de la cultura visual contemporánea donde podemos navegar para comprender  mejor nuestro propio tiempo.

Abstract

Born at the end of the 20th century, GIFs have returned with social networks. They are not a simple compression format but an intermediate image. Whether they are considered poor images, conversational, intermediate, banal or artistic, they make up a dispersed and fragmentary group that responds to the principle of cloning and replicating the digital image. What relationship do GIFs present with visual formulas that go through time? From the simplest and most massive to the GIF ART or the implants of Net Art this visual artifact is one of the indisputable protagonists of the 2.0 visual culture.

KeyWords: Visual Culture, GIF, Networks, Pathosformeln, Digital Image

Texto en linea: http://www.e-imagen.net/project/del-atlas-mnemosyne-a-giphy-la-supervivencia-de-las-imagenes-en-la-era-del-gif/

Artefacto VIsual: https://www.revlat.com/numero-4

Taking as a reference Warburg’s iconology of the interval, this paper attempts to explore the logic of montage, editing and juxtaposition as one of the pillars of contemporary audiovisual creation and research. Warburg’s legacy, more active today than ever, gives priority to transmission, historicity and artistic empathy, and the development of a history of art that is less concerned with periods and authors than with ‘what happens to the observer’ based on the vital, emotional response to the repertoires and afterlife of gestures, the pathos formulae that have been passed down through history, escaping classification into trends. The great project Mnemosyne is an atlas of images conceived as a moving archive. His attention to time shocks and the dialectics of image is a big reference for the use of poetic and critical editing in the work of filmmakers, artists, photographers and writers. But above all, editing and juxtaposition a central tool in contemporary artistic research is its condition of laboratory.

Characterizing cinematic representations of May 18 Democratization Movement in 1980 and extant studies of the former in terms of ‘melancholic repetition compulsion of mourning,’ this article pinpoints the special amnesty granted to Ex-President Chun Doo-hwan in 1997 as its obscene historical condition of possibility.

Made possible by the then President-elect-cum-the-symbolic-representative-of-victims Kim Dae-jung’s consent, this legal amnesty effectively results in the foreclosure of the traumatic massacre perpetrated in Gwangju, May 1980 within the field of legal battles, whereby nullifying the tenuous Freudian distinction between ‘mourning’ and ‘melancholia.’

This article argues that, doomed to repeat its failure, this ‘repetition compulsion of mourning’ forced the energy reserved for mourning work to ‘migrate’ from the field of ‘fact’ and ‘documentary’ to that of ‘fiction,’ more precisely by means of aphasic ‘contiguity disorder,’ which also accounts for why death among numerous films in the latter vein is rendered less ‘tragic’ than in travesty. By way of what Aby Warburg calls “migration of images” and ‘pathosformel,’ this paper critically reflects on how the desire for self-amputation betrayed by a series of figures connects to renouncing the ‘lure of the tragic,’ calling for a radical rethinking of the Void of ‘Chun’s (ir)reponsibility,’ long-overlooked by the static understanding and foregone analysis.

The increasing dominance of images in contemporary mass communication makes the visual a relevant field of investigation for understanding the role of affects and emotions that resonate within any given society. This chapter addresses the theoretical and methodological foundation of the analysis of images with regard to affects from an art-historical point of view. Art historians can rely partly on their expertise in image analysis and image description, but must also look for ways to address images as ‘storage’ of affect. Aby Warburg and his concept of Pathosformel addresses this ‘storage’ of affective intensity in terms of materialization or formalization of affect. The example of Warburg’s own, often idiosyncratic, research will also be the starting-off point of our discussion on how much of an art historian’s ‘method’ can be made explicit at all, and to what extent it remains a habituated ability to be affected by images in a prolific way.

Una idea frecuente que nos hacemos del arte medieval es aquella que nos lo presenta caracterizado por una llamativa ausencia de emociones en las figuras humanas representadas. Estáticas o herméticas, parecen presentarnos personajes incapaces de emocionar y emocionarse o conmover y conmoverse. Rostros sin gestos, rostros en serie que no permiten identificar fisonomías, las de un nombre, un ser querido, una emoción detrás de un acto o un llanto desconsolado. Configuraciones visuales que parecen carentes de movimiento, de cuerpos con vida o expresiones que podamos identificar. Pero muchas veces olvidamos que sus medios -en el sentido que ha propuesto Hans Belting- no fueron concebidos para nosotros. Además de las esculturas y las pinturas, el universo de imágenes excede nuestro horizonte moderno: reliquias, iconos, exvotos, talismanes, sueños, visiones… Son imágenes hijas de una praxis visual ajena. El argumento de que las emociones están ausentes en las imágenes medievales tanto por la influencia de los discursos filosóficos y teológicos como de la ausencia de formulas estéticas propias de la influencia de la Antigüedad Clásica en la cultura europea del Renacimiento, son el puntapié para repensar la relación entre las fórmulas visuales, la emoción y la imagen a la luz de nuevas propuestas teóricas.

The depictions of the Erythraean Sibyl at Sant’Angelo in Formis and in the pulpit at Sessa Aurunca have been connected to the performance of her chant during the Christmas liturgy. A new approach makes it possible to expand our view of the reception of the Sibyl in the Middle Ages. In Campania, the Sibyl was closely linked to the Virgilian tradition and a number of Sibylline sites in the region. The performance of her chant, which was centered on a frightful description of the Last Judgment, not only at Christmas but also on Holy Saturday, breaks new ground in the interpretation of the iconographic programs that involve the Sibyl.

Breve apresentação da História da Arte como concebida por Aby Warburg, pioneiro no estudo das Pathosformel ou "fórmulas patéticas", que revolucionou sua disciplina, criou uma biblioteca fantástica (quase borgiana) e apontou para a crianção de uma cadeira, a Ciência da Arte. Depois dos estudos de Didi-huberman, se tornou praticamente uma inconsequência não estudar inclusive a arte moderna (Bataille, Einstein, Picasso, Miró) através das ferramentas intelectuais criadas pelo inovador pesquisador alemão.

Para los humanistas, confiados en el prestigio y el aura religiosa de la ciudad, el Saqueo de Roma de 1527 significó una fractura a nivel psicológico y simbólico que, lejos de restringirse al ámbito político y social también afectó las tradiciones, las costumbres y la espiritualidad. No obstante, André Chastel, en su estudio seminal sobre el tema, ha insistido en la imposibilidad de representar visualmente el saqueo en el caso de los italianos, porque en tanto “víctimas” apelaron a una “censura instintiva” para reprimir una experiencia traumática. En esta ponencia se discute este aspecto de su interpretación a partir del estudio de una serie de mayólicas de Francesco Xanto Avelli, uno de los ceramistas más famosos del Renacimiento.

This book is about representations of the body in all fields (fine art, medicine, ethnography, racial studies, biology). It is intended for artists, art students, and people interested in theories of art.

This is the 2021 revision. Every couple of years I rewrite and update this book. The original was published by Stanford University Press in 1999 and is now out of print. This revision (the third "edition") includes examples from contemporary art, and assignments for classroom use.

All comments & questions are welcome!

En este ensayo se analizan tres obras de la artista colombiana Erika Dietes. Estas obras conforman una
unidad manifiesta: el trabajo con la comunidad, el relato de las víctimas y de los sobrevivientes como parte constitutiva
de la obra, las referencias rituales y sacras mediante la metaforización del cementerio, así como el vínculo que se
construye con la iconografía cristiana. Todas estas relaciones confluyen en los temas de la memoria, el dolor y el duelo.
No obstante, estos trabajos no pueden interpretarse de manera unívoca. Teniendo en cuenta este principio, en este
documento se entabla un diálogo con algunas de las interpretaciones recurrentes sobre la obra de la artista, como
aquellas que señalan la función de su trabajo con respecto a la elaboración del duelo y la representación del dolor. En
relación con esta perspectiva, se hace un análisis de tipo ambivalente en el que el duelo y el dolor están presentes,
pero a partir de sus tensiones y conflictos.

The essay aims to define Aby Warburg’s aesthetics as a theoretical plot of his iconological research, from the early fragments on the human expression and symbol to the latest writings. Warburg's aesthetics is considered being composed of four moments or dimensions: energetic, pathetic, symbolic and dramatic. Conclusively, in relationship to Warburg's energetics is briefly analyzed the relevance of Georg Hirth's work and particularly of his book, Energetische Epigenesis und Epigenetische Energieformen insbesondere Merksysteme und plastische Spiegelungen, Ein Programmschrift für Naturforscher und Aertzte (Hirth, München 1898).

Beginning with Giorgio Agamben’s alignment of ethics and potentiality, this essay questions the ethical dimension of gesture in the field of dance as an eminently potentiality-bound art form. This draws on Daniel Sibony’s concept of law and dance, according to which the body simultaneously repels and longs for the law as a nexus of heteronomous structures. I frame this through a revision of Aby Warburg’s rhetorical concept, pathos formula, into the corollary term, ethos formula, as the encoded movement patterns of ethical attitudes or comportments which are motivated by decision-making rather than emotional content. Do gestures and their citation in dance bear an ethical dimension similar to the encoded transmission of emotions through movement?

This new concept of ethos formula finds an excellent example in the work of the American choreographer Ted Shawn (1891–1972). His strikingly hybrid use of ethos formula from the 19th century Catholic theorist François Delsarte and his parallel practice of quoting liturgical gestures from Protestant church services, pursues the ambiguity and uncanniness of modernity itself. For Shawn—like many other protagonists of modernist dance—argues on the one hand for freeing the body from the boundaries of classical ballet in the name of individual expression, and on the other hand for an instrumentalized body that still clings to principles of taxonomy and normativity.

Presento un análisis de la cartelería de la guerra civil española como expresión artística de su propio tiempo, es decir como una conciencia del estado político que atravesaba el territorio plasmada en imágenes. El corpus elegido es pensado para trabajar también la temática de género, es decir el rol de la mujer, en esta lucha.

RESUMO Esta comunicação discute processos de potencialização e domesticação da imagem a partir da comparação das abordagens da história da arte de Aby Warburg e Erwin Panofsky. Parte-se da análise iconográfica empreendida por Panofsky de uma obra de Francesco Maffei (1605-1660) com tema de Judite ou Salomé. Estas duas figuras bíblicas aparecem também na prancha 47 do "Atlas Mnemosyne" de Warburg, contudo, o historiador alemão reuniu nela não só o tema da "caçadora de cabeças", mas também o tema do anjo custódio, sobrepondo a "figura da proteção" e a "fúria destrutiva". Desta montagem de imagens de conteúdos aparentemente opostos, depreende-se a noção de imagem-sintoma, menos engajada com a identificação exata das figuras-como preconizava Panofsky; e mais capaz de potencializar as imagens, sem domesticá-las ou esgotá-las. ABSTRACT This paper discusses processes of potentialization and domestication of the image through the comparison of the art history approaches of Aby Warburg and Erwin Panofsky. It starts from the iconographic analysis undertaken by Panofsky of a work by Francesco Maffei (1605-1660) with the theme of Judith or Salome. These two biblical figures also appear on plate 47 of Warburg's "Atlas Mnemosyne," however, the German historian brought together not only the theme of the "head-huntress" but also the theme of the custodial angel, superimposing the "figure of protection" and the "destructive fury." From this montage of images of seemingly opposing contents, we see the notion of image-symptom, less engaged with the exact identification of figures-as Panofsky advocated; but more capable of potentializing images, without domesticating or exhausting them.

Las imágenes tienen la capacidad de generar plusvalía. Esto refiere a que las
imágenes, que son activadas por las personas, parecen estar vivas, y por ende tener una agencia propia. Es por ello que generan ambivalencia en los sujetos: se encuentran entre el amor y el odio, entre la sobreestimación y la subestimación.

El propósito de esta ponencia es explorar y analizar la activación de las imágenes
mediante la mirada, centrándonos en cómo operan ciertas fórmulas del pathos (concepto tomado de Aby Warburg que describe elementos visuales de representación de experiencias genéricas de la humanidad que sobreviven en el tiempo) recurrentes que han sobrevivido a lo largo de los años. Específicamente nos centramos en el contexto del cine de terror para trabajar con aquellos objetos creados por personas que tienen la característica de cobrar vida, y que se convierten en una amenaza. Esta conversión en algo peligroso nos puede dar una pista del poder que les otorgamos.

L´articolo si propone di esplorare le modalità di rappresentazione che assume il Sacco di Roma del 1527 come massacro storico. Da un lato vengono tracciate le corrispondenze tra immagini e testi; dall´altro si cerca di identificare i codici retorici e estetici che hanno permesso ai protagonisti di raccontare il sacco come un caso limite, sia per il grado di violenza raggiunto, che per la quantità di morti. In questo senso si discuterà il lavoro di André Chastel in relazione a due aspetti: (i) l´intepretazione univoca delle rappresentazioni imperiali del sacco come trionfo militare e (ii) l´assenza, nel caso italiano, di immagini immediatamente contemporanee all´avvenimento

[the full article in http://www.engramma.it/eOS/index.php?id_articolo=3579]

Around 1515, Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) was called by Alfonso d'Este to complete his “Camerino delle pitture”: Titian found the cycle begun by Giovanni Bellini with the so-called Feast of the Gods – a painting that Titian himself retouched heavily to satisfy the client's tastes. The other three paintings in the series were inspired, in varying degrees, by the text of Imagines by Philostratus that Demetrius Mosco had recently vulgarised for Alfonso's sister, Isabella.

Titian drew inspiration from the ekphrasis of ancient paintings and yet interpreted them freely, going as far as inventing, for the image that concludes the cycle The Bacchanal of the Andrians (1523-1524), the figure of sleeping maenad that had as its model a statue that just recently had entered the collection of Julius II: the Vatican Ariadne. It should be noted, however, that at the time, the sculpture was identified as Cleopatra. But Titian, with brilliant artistic intuition, sees in that Sleeping Beauty the bacchante par excellence, Dionysus’ bride: Ariadne.

The essay also presents, in an Appendix, the excerpts from Imagines by Philostratus ((I.24 ΑΝΔΡΙΟΙ, I.6 ΕΡΩΤΕΣ, I.16 ΑΡΙΑΔΝΗ), which inspired the painter for the cycle: a Greek text, with Italian translation and the vulgarisation by Demetrio Mosco that Alfonso (and therefore Titian) had at his disposal.

Este artigo apresenta dois conceitos fundamentais da teoria iconológica desenvolvida por Aby Warburg, a Nachleben e a Pathosformeln, com o intuito de compreender como se dá a sobrevivência das formas na história da arte, como desaparecem e ressurgem em outros tempos. Deste modo, vai ser estabelecido através da sobrevivência das formas, o pós-vida das formas antigas sobre a representação da ruína, através de elementos arquitetônicos, que estão presentes nas gravuras de Giovanni Battista Piranesi e que ressurgem nas pinturas de Giorgio De Chirico e também em Roy Lichtenstein. Especificamente, as formas investigadas como uma imagem sobrevivente são observadas através dos tambores das colunas de templos e de antigas construções em ruínas, que representam a arquitetura greco-romana, assim sendo, analisada do período neoclássico até a arte moderna.

This study proposes a novel analysis of Lamentation Over the Dead Christ (c. 1470-1480) by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) and the iconography of mourners. Particularly, it focuses on the role played by the three mourners in enhancing the emotional contagion of the painting. In creating this scene, Mantegna relied on the tradition of the iconography of mourners, which is characterised by particular gestures and facial expressions recurrent across centuries and cultures. Aby Warburg named these types of schemes Pathosformeln (formulas of pathos). He also pointed out that humans’ creation and comprehension of these formulas resides within a precise mental faculty: the social memory. Warburg’s assumption seems to be confirmed by recent neuroscientific and neuroaesthetic research on the perception of emotions, whether in life or in still works of art. As empirical data indicate, observing a situation such as the one depicted on the left-hand side of Mantegna’s Lamentation activates the same neural network in the beholder as would be activated in those figures, thus mirroring the emotion (i.e. grief ) conveyed by their physical and physiognomical expression. This explains the universality of both the representation and (visceral) understanding of the iconography of mourners and the emotion it conveys to people of every period and context. Furthermore, these considerations expose a topic addressed for the first time in this study, that is, the extent to which the beholder empathises with the dead body of Christ, the central figure of the painting, which does not express any emotions.

RESUMO Esta comunicação pretende investigar imagens de casulo nas artes visuais. Parte-se de imagens de obras de diversos períodos e contextos, nas quais se observam as seguintes relações: as noções de hibridismo humano-animal, que podem remeter às "Metamorfoses" de Ovídio, mas também às grotescas renascimentais. Aproxima-se do hibridismo na arte do passado e na arte contemporânea também através da categoria de Inquietante (Unheimlich), de Sigmund Freud. A abordagem de Georges Didi-Huberman acerca da imagem-mariposa inspira para pensar a imagem-casulo, com suas associações à imobilidade, suspensão, expectativa, ambiguidade, mistério. Por fim, apresenta-se uma hipótese: seria a imagem-casulo aquela que precede o movimento e a expressão da ninfa de Aby Warburg? ABSTRACT This communication intends to investigate cocoon images in the visual arts. Through images of works from different periods and contexts, the following relations are observed: the notions of human-animal hybridism, which can refer to Ovid's "Metamorphoses", but also to the Renaissance "grottesche". Hybridism in contemporary or past art is also approached through Sigmund Freud's category of Uncanny (Unheimlich). Georges Didi-Huberman's approach to the moth image inspires to think the cocoon image, with its associations to immobility, suspension, expectation, ambiguity, mystery. Finally, a hypothesis is presented: would it be the cocoon image which precedes the movement and expression of the nymph of Aby Warburg?

This article analyzes the representation of political submission and deprivation of liberty gestures in the tv series Black Mirror. Throughout a method based on Aby Warburg’s iconology, the article observes continuities and iconographic variations with respect to the pictorial and cinematographic sources that support the dystopia. Likewise, the text tries to create a methodological model of application of the Warburgian iconology, fundamentally oriented to Renaissance painting, to contemporary tv fiction.

El presente artículo analiza la representación de los gestos de sumisión y privación de libertad en la serie Black Mirror. A través de un método basado en la iconología del intervalo de Aby Warburg, se observan las continuidades y variaciones iconográficas de la serie con respecto a las fuentes pictóricas y cinematográficas que sustentan la distopía. Asimismo, el texto intenta crear un modelo metodológico de aplicación de la iconología warburgiana, fundamentalmente orientada a la pintura del Renacimiento, a la ficción serial contemporánea.