The Supermarket of the Visible: Toward a General Economy of Images

Author:   Peter Szendy ,  Jan Plug
Publisher:   Fordham University Press
ISBN:  

9780823283576


Pages:   160
Publication Date:   02 April 2019
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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The Supermarket of the Visible: Toward a General Economy of Images


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Overview

Already in 1929, Walter Benjamin described ""a one hundred per cent image-space."" Such an image space saturates our world now more than ever, constituting the visibility in which we live. The Supermarket of the Visible analyzes this space and the icons that populate it as the culmination of a history of the circulation and general commodification of images and gazes. From the first elevators and escalators (tracking shots avant la lettre) to cinema (the great conductor of gazes), all the way down to contemporary eye-tracking techniques that monitor the slightest saccades of our eyes, Peter Szendy offers an entirely novel theory of the intersection of the image and economics. The Supermarket of the Visible elaborates an economy proper to images, icons, in other words, an iconomy. Deleuze caught a glimpse of this when he wrote that ""money is the back side of all the images that cinema shows and edits on the front."" Since ""cinema,"" for Deleuze, is synonymous with ""universe,"" Szendy argues that this sentence must be understood in its broadest dimension and that a reading of key works in the history of cinema allows us a unique vantage point upon the reverse of images, their monetary implications. Paying close attention to sequences in Hitchcock, Bresson, Antonioni, De Palma, and The Sopranos, Szendy shows how cinema is not a uniquely commercial art form among other, purer arts, but, more fundamentally, helps to elaborate what might be called, with Bataille, a general iconomy. Moving deftly and lightly between political economy, aesthetic theory, and popular movies and television, The Supermarket of the Visible will be a necessary book for anyone concerned with media, philosophy, politics, or visual culture.

Full Product Details

Author:   Peter Szendy ,  Jan Plug
Publisher:   Fordham University Press
Imprint:   Fordham University Press
ISBN:  

9780823283576


ISBN 10:   0823283577
Pages:   160
Publication Date:   02 April 2019
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Sydney Lectures 1. Money, or The Other Side of Images 3 2. The Point of (No) Exchange, or The Debt- Image 27 3. Innervation, or The Gaze of Capital 43 Additional Features Merchandise: Godzilla’s Eye 79 Deleted Scenes: Doors and Slide Changers in Pickpocket and Obsession 84 Deleted Scenes: Three Variations on Time and Money (Antonioni, De Palma, Bresson) 88 Photo Gallery: Blow- Up, or Why There Are No Images 92 Locations: 23, rue Bénard, Paris, 75014 99 Deleted Scene: The Fluctuations of the Unchained Camera (L’Herbier) 101 Deleted Scenes: The General Fetishism of the Marxes 103 Deleted Scenes: The Amortization of the Gaze (King Kong) 106 Formats: Surplus Definition (Redacted) 112 Credits 121 Notes 123 Index 155

Reviews

The Supermarket of the Visible brings together a Marxist critique of the political economy of the image with a celebration of the emancipatory power lurking in the cinematic frame. This unique project provides new possibilities for thinking non-reductively about the relationship between economy and visuality. It transcends the received wisdom to produce a series of unexpected interventions. -- Todd McGowan, author of The Impossible David Lynch A gifted writer with real pedagogical talent, Szendy knows just the appropriate dosage of theoretical fine points (which he makes with surgical precision) and shifts register as needed to quite accessible discussions of popular films and television. A significant contribution to our understanding of the image world we inhabit today. -- Suzanne Guerlac, University of California, Berkeley


The Supermarket of the Visible brings together a Marxist critique of the political economy of the image with a celebration of the emancipatory power lurking in the cinematic frame. This unique project provides new possibilities for thinking non-reductively about the relationship between economy and visuality. It transcends the received wisdom to produce a series of unexpected interventions.---Todd McGowan, author of The Impossible David Lynch A gifted writer with real pedagogical talent, Szendy knows just the appropriate dosage of theoretical fine points (which he makes with surgical precision) and shifts register as needed to quite accessible discussions of popular films and television. A significant contribution to our understanding of the image world we inhabit today.---Suzanne Guerlac, University of California, Berkeley


The Supermarket of the Visible brings together a Marxist critique of the political economy of the image with a celebration of the emancipatory power lurking in the cinematic frame. This unique project provides new possibilities for thinking non-reductively about the relationship between economy and visuality. It transcends the received wisdom to produce a series of unexpected interventions.---Todd McGowan, author of The Impossible David Lynch, A gifted writer with real pedagogical talent, Szendy knows just the appropriate dosage of theoretical fine points (which he makes with surgical precision) and shifts register as needed to quite accessible discussions of popular films and television. A significant contribution to our understanding of the image world we inhabit today.---Suzanne Guerlac, University of California, Berkeley,


The Supermarket of the Visible transcends the received wisdom to produce a series of unexpected interventions. -- Todd McGowan, author of The Impossible David Lynch A gifted writer with real pedagogical talent, Szendy knows just the appropriate dosage of theoretical fine points (which he makes with surgical precision) and shifts register as needed to quote accessible discussions of popular films and television. A significant contribution to our understanding of the image world we inhabit today. -- Suzanne Guerlac, University of California, Berkeley


Author Information

Peter Szendy (Author) Peter Szendy is David Herlihy Professor of Humanities and Comparative Literature at Brown University and musicological advisor for the concert programs at the Paris Philharmonie. His books include Of Stigmatology: Punctuation as Experience; All Ears: The Aesthetics of Espionage; Apocalypse-Cinema: 2012 and Other Ends of the World; Kant in the Land of Extraterrestrials; Hits: Philosophy in the Jukebox; and Listen: A History of Our Ears.. Jan Plug (Translator) Jan Plug is Professor of English at the University of Western Ontario. Among his other translations is Peter Szendy’s Of Stigmatology: Punctuation as Experience.

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