Resurgence or Twilight of Images?

In this chapter Francesco Striano introduces the reader to the problem of image relevance at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. He seeks to explore whether the proliferation of optical technology-mediated images aligns with the concept of the “return of images” that supposedly characterises late modernity. The fundamental thesis of this contribution is that it is not, properly speaking, a “return” and, moreover, it is even simplistic to speak of “images” in that regard. The author argues that the genesis of images lies in the perceptual-cultural operation of differentiation, linking the production of images to Gottfried Boehm’s concept of “iconic difference”. According to Striano, this capacity not only determines the genesis of images but also shapes human access to visual experience and underpins a broader capacity that can be identified with a fundamental cultural technique: the double movement of externalisation and internalisation that forms the basis of any mediation process.