Le apocalissi del sensibile. Appunti su immagine, disvelamento, rigenerazione

Abstract

Technologies of production and reproduction of sensorial materials (images, sounds, movements or transformations) produce an "apocalypse of the senses", in the double sense that they reveal sensorial life to itself, and that they call for a renewal of sensory routines. From a historical point of view, it is possible to identify three major steps. In the West pre-modern life, sensorial life was made present through images within the category of the sacred, in a profound unity directly involving the subject and the forms of his or her presence. Modernity, in contrast, adopted a secularized view: the sensorium was disrupted and became anonymous, detached from individual bodies and direct experience. Finally, within contemporary “post - media” condition, we consider sensible life as a field of action: indeed, the subject is called to appropriate and manipulate sensible life artificially produced by technology; and the apocalypse of the sensible life becomes a repeated, happy game.