Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art is “an archaeology of hatred and fanaticism” within the Western tradition. In the destruction of one image, many new images may emerge, like a hydra. When an image is destroyed, a vacuum is created; when we close our eyes after seeing an image, there remains an after effect. If an idol or sacred statue needs to be destroyed to show that it is without power, that it is meaningless, what is the meaning of its power over the destroyer?

A fascinating and very important subject, ambitiously conceived but not always well executed. Some loss is due to translation issues, perhaps. I would have liked the editors to adequately synthesize the information for a discussion re “what’s next” or to present sections in more lucid debate, but understandably this would present a tremendous challenge. A first rate contribution via individual essays, but they missed the mark as a whole due to a lack of coherence in sections.

For those essays written with an academic audience in mind, a common problem arises in effective linking of ideas. Even if a reader is unfamiliar with certain terms or supporting material amongst the book’s vast array of diverse subject matter, that in itself is not problematic: few people have a background in everything and that is what Google and Wikipedia are for — even if one suspects one hasn’t grasped every nuance it is very enjoyable and thought provoking. The issue is when authors do not employ clear links between suppositions, showing how they moved from point A to point B. It occasionally reads as if some parts have been inadvertently left out of the equation. We can all be guilty of this: it’s easier to write for colleagues than for the public as so much (terminology, history, current critiques) can be assumed; this why a hardline editor is necessary, to make sure the finished essay is a stand-alone piece that is fully supported by its own progressive logic.

When it’s good, it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad, it can be awkward and fragmented.

Favorite essayists include:
William Pietz — Iconoclasm is at once the crime and it’s absolution, but only if nothing remains. But something always remains. p65
Dario Gamboni — However, as far as art and cultural heritage are concerned, a certain amount of unease and dissent never totally disappeared, fed by spectacular increases in financial value and physical protection. The attribution of resources to their preservation could be resented as an expression of materialism and passé-ism, privileging objects over human life, tradition over living experience. p94
Peter Galison — We cannot ever speak (or paint, or calculate) without metaphysical abstraction. At the same time the abstract is never completely so; even in the coldest reaches of mathematical physics we will always (borrowing from Luther), find the image of our face in still water. Not abstract against the concrete, but rather shifting historical realizations of concrete-abstraction or abstract-concreteness. p323
Caroline Jones — The internal iconoclasm of modernism cancels the conventional representation of objects in order that the artist (and, by implication, the viewer) might become more truly a subject.” p414
Simon Schaffer on Bacon, Hobbes and Newton who identified as iconoclasts while generating new images for reform in the sciences, politics and religion — All used complex optical devices to understand the origin of idolatry and its cure. All projected new forms of social order to secure their world. p500
Adam Lowe — The main reason that Islam is seen as an iconoclastic religion is not that there is a dislike of images, but rather that it keeps trying to elevate them onto a different level – to aspire to universal truths and not subjective and transient perceptions from the perspective of the street (or the market place). When this becomes doctrine, it becomes iconoclastic (as all things do). Yet the line really reflects a love of images and a respect for them that understands the conceits involved in their making and the artifice of the artist; a profoundly iconophilic world view. p558
Peter Weibel — Bahktin emphasizes interpretation as the origin of the text, which is equal to the creation of a text. Therefore, the reader is equal to the author, as later will be the case with the observer creating the artwork by interaction. The closed object and the closed text start to become an open practice. Applying Bahktin’s theory to painting would actually ensure the continuity of the last painting. p635 ( )

This book is a most comprehensive anthology about the image wars, as it joins for the first time different cultures from West to East, different epochs from Middle Ages to modernism, different practices from science to art, in the search for an understanding of the nature of the image. This question is more actual than ever, because the question of the image, always answered differently from different political and cultural perspectives, is central in a society built more than ever on visual media for the question: What is reality? Today, in the era of new instruments of image making in art and science, from media to medicine, the functions of the image have changed radically. The name of the multiple transformations of the image in the technical universe of today is called “crisis of representations.” Iconoclasts and Iconophiles fight on the field of representation, denying or believing in the possibility of representation, in the referential functions of chains of signs

William Pietz — Iconoclasm is at once the crime and it’s absolution, but only if nothing remains. But something always remains. p65
Dario Gamboni — However, as far as art and cultural heritage are concerned, a certain amount of unease and dissent never totally disappeared, fed by spectacular increases in financial value and physical protection. The attribution of resources to their preservation could be resented as an expression of materialism and passé-ism, privileging objects over human life, tradition over living experience. p94
Peter Galison — We cannot ever speak (or paint, or calculate) without metaphysical abstraction. At the same time the abstract is never completely so; even in the coldest reaches of mathematical physics we will always (borrowing from Luther), find the image of our face in still water. Not abstract against the concrete, but rather shifting historical realizations of concrete-abstraction or abstract-concreteness. p323
Caroline Jones — The internal iconoclasm of modernism cancels the conventional representation of objects in order that the artist (and, by implication, the viewer) might become more truly a subject.” p414
Simon Schaffer on Bacon, Hobbes and Newton who identified as iconoclasts while generating new images for reform in the sciences, politics and religion — All used complex optical devices to understand the origin of idolatry and its cure. All projected new forms of social order to secure their world. p500
Adam Lowe — The main reason that Islam is seen as an iconoclastic religion is not that there is a dislike of images, but rather that it keeps trying to elevate them onto a different level – to aspire to universal truths and not subjective and transient perceptions from the perspective of the street (or the market place). When this becomes doctrine, it becomes iconoclastic (as all things do). Yet the line really reflects a love of images and a respect for them that understands the conceits involved in their making and the artifice of the artist; a profoundly iconophilic world view. p558
Peter Weibel — Bahktin emphasizes interpretation as the origin of the text, which is equal to the creation of a text. Therefore, the reader is equal to the author, as later will be the case with the observer creating the artwork by interaction. The closed object and the closed text start to become an open practice. Applying Bahktin’s theory to painting would actually ensure the continuity of the last painting. p635