Navigation

The phenomenology employed in art history, visual studies and related disciplines tends to assume that the principle effect of presence or presencing involves animacy, life-likeness, lifeliness (Lebendigkeit), among other ‘reality effects’. While this (the appearing of appearance) is certainly part of the story, there are additional dimensions of presence to consider, especially those concerning the disappearance of the appearing. This panel seeks to explore inversions, negations, and other aporia that inherently accompany presence. For example, when the illusion of animated like-likeness becomes perceptually apparent a beholder may come to experience the artifact in an entirely new register of significance. Historical examples can be drawn from arts and visual cultures regardless of historical period or geographic locale. We are especially interested in papers that might address foundational historiographies of presence and its paradoxes in art historical and related discourses.