Cultura visuale. Una genealogia

This book offers an overview of the main twentieth-century genealogies of visual culture, choosing only three paradigmatic figures: Aby Warburg, Sigmund Freud and Walter Benjamin. After Warburg the notion of image has definitely changed. After Freud, the gaze is inextricably linked to the theme of sexuality and bios. After Benjamin the notion of device and those of apparatus, assemblage and media environment have definitely changed.These authors are not only at the origins of visual culture but foreshadow its future developments. From Warburg we learned that making-images is part of the biology and essential behaviors of Homo sapiens, an aspect that cognitive neuroscience, anthropology, archeology and paleontology have been developing in recent years. Thanks to Freud we know that the gaze is essential for understanding epistemic practices, gender issues and social politics. Benjamin taught us that devices are essential elements of our ecological hollow.