Seven Ways of Thinking About Images (lecture)

This was recorded for a conference in Bressanone, Italy, which I couldn't attend; it was screened at the conference in autumn 2018. The “seven ways“ of looking at images include: 1. Do images have a nature? (An ontology? An essence?) 2. Why is it so difficult to classify images? Why can't they be classified the way that animals, plants, and so many other kinds of objects are? 3. What sort of thing is _not_ an image? Is there anything that is clearly non-imagistic? 4. How closely do people look at images? Is the current discourse in materiality getting closer to the texture of paintings, for example? 5. What does it mean that so many people who work with images (artists, historians, theorists) do not have theories of what images are? This material builds on the book “What is an Image?“ and also the book “Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction.“ It includes thoughts on the nature of writing in art history, art theory, aesthetics, visual culture, and visual studies.