Iconic rituals

towards a social theory of encountering images

Julia Sonnevend

pp. 219-232

in: Jeffrey C. Alexander, Dominik Bartmański, Bernhard Giesen (eds), Iconic power, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

Images are fellow travelers in time: they are permanent residents in our lives. We look at images in our homes, we see them on the surfaces of urban environments, and we encounter them in old and new media spheres. When we look at images, we "meet" them and engage in a complex game of distance and closeness. We search for familiarity and for difference; we enjoy the meeting or wish to forget it immediately. We try to understand the image by interpretation, but the encounter is far from being only rational: it also has a mysterious and unpredictable chemistry. Similar to looking at people, we frequently look at images, and on a very few occasions, we fall in love with them.