Presence: The Inherence of the Prototype within Images and Other Objects

by Robert Maniura (Editor)

In about 25 BC tribesmen of the kingdom of Meroe placed a bronze head of Augustus, cut from a full-length statue, beneath the steps of a temple of the decapitated head of the Emperor was thus regularly trampled underfoot. Two millennia later, during the second Gulf War, Iraqis 'insulted' a toppled bronze statue of Saddam Hussein by beating it with their shoes. Do these chronologically distant but apparently related examples of the defamation of images imply that the persons represented were regarded by their detractors as in some way 'present' in the images? The Inherence of the Prototype within Images and Other Objects reconsiders the notion of 'presence' in objects. The first book to address the issue directly, it contains a series of case studies covering a broad geographical and chronological range from ancient Greece and the Incas to industrial America and contemporary India, as well as examples from the canon of western European art. The studies reveal the widespread evidence for this striking form of response and allow readers to see how 'presence' is evoked and either embraced or repressed in differing historical and cultural contexts. Featuring a variety of disciplines and approaches, the book will be of interest to students of art history, art theory, visual culture, anthropology, psychology and philosophy.

340 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2006

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

If images are not seen as passive, but as requiring a response, then our relationship with them (and by extension all evocative objects) is more like the to-and-fro, call-and-response relationship between sentient beings.
If you consider that we are a social species who privilege human interaction because it is more likely to add to our survival, you will not only take for granted our anthropomorphic world-view, you will understand that we cannot perceive anything except in terms of human character. Our brain is wired to see the world anthropomorphically. Hence such fascinating phenomenon as pareidolia, or our tendency to look for intentionality in all things.
This is a fascinating book on a topic I've not come across before.
The essays cover a variety of approaches to the concept of presence. Most of the writers have been somewhat influenced by Alfred Gell's Art and Agency. Perhaps in a lesser way by Freedberg's Power of Images and W. J. T Mitchell's What Do Pictures Want?
I found the essays less interesting when concerned with issues of representation and realism or splits between signifier and signified. More interesting for me personally when they had an a more anthropological slant and looked at images operating more like people. A shame no-one referred to the interesting philosophical developments and re-modelling of the concept of animism, but I found this book an exciting read.