Il visibile e l’immaginabile: cultura visuale, media e immaginario

Visual Culture Studies represent an innovative approach to the study of visual culture, connecting Media Studies, sociology, aesthetics, history of art, iconography. The evolution of this field of study, thanks to authors such as W.J.T. Mitchell, M. Bal, J. Elkins and others, raises some relevant issues. Starting from the book Epidemia visuale (edited by Fabio La Rocca), this paper explores how visual culture can contribute to the evolution of media theories. Moreover, the vision is conceived as a social and cultural construction. In this perspective, different observation techniques produce new ways of knowing. The aim of the discipline is thus no longer the study of visual content, but the study of the connection between vision practices and forms of knowledge. A third set of questions addressed by the authors of this book deals with the evolution of visual culture within the conflicting and effervescent dynamics of contemporary digital social imaginaries.