The Beholder’s Freedom: Critical Remarks on the “Will to See”

Abstract

It is a commonplace to conceive of images as enormously powerful media. Iconologists may have quite different views on how the notion of iconicity ought to be understood and defined, but they hardly question the widely shared belief in the power of images. In fact, it seems that for most scholars the existence of a certain kind of “iconic power” represents a key element of the very essence of iconicity as such. Hence, it is not surprising to see that the belief in the power of images is often liberated from any need of further explanation or justification—it is simply taken as an indisputable fact, as a “natural given” prevalent and effective in any kind of imagery whatsoever. This chapter argues against such an ontological rendering of the power of images. Power is never a natural phenomenon, but always a relational feature. It is the result of social practices that are deeply influenced by cultural, political, historical, and many other factors. Far from being a natural given, it is something made. To put it in a Foucaultian manner: Power is the outcome of discursive practices.

Note: This chapter is a revised version of my article “Vom Freiheitsverlust des Betrachters. Einige kritische Bemerkungen zum ‘Willen zum Sehen,’” published in: Maßlose Bilder. Visuelle Ästhetik der Transgression, edited by Ingeborg Reichle and Steffen Siegel, Munich: Fink, 2009, pp. 37–50. I would like to thank Stefan Schaden for his help in the preparation of an English version of this paper for the present volume.