WHAT IS AN IMAGE? #1 / essay by Giacomo Croci

An essay for DUST Magazine by Giacomo Croci

part one

What is image? Let’s go straight to the point, without too many diversions, as if a simple answer could be conceived for such a simple question.

Imagine (that’s what we are trying to talk about, that’s always the point, think and imagine, ask and imagine) a child asking: what is this?, pointing his finger at it, then you are really able to say: oh, well, this and that, aren’t you? Further: to imagine and to define.

If that child, for example, is asking you: what is image?, what are you going to say to him? That’s the beginning of this trial. It is already obvious that the pointing of that finger is a consistent part of the object in question: pointing one’s finger at an image isn’t already an image asking about itself? We need therefore to go through some of those diversions which were said to be left apart.

In plain words: there’s no going straight to the point. I feel quite unable to answer in that so-and-so immediate form of sentence, which should nevertheless be held like the idea of a result, that regulates the process of asking and writing. The answer appears then to be an assemblage, a combination of elements we took from others’ explanations, other answers to the same problem, to similar or totally different enigmas.

The last premise to be declared concerns the form in which something is written: this is not an essay, i.e. academy is left out. The aim is kept on the floor, it creeps, leaving suggestions here and there. Sometimes, in some occasions, hints and references will be given, but just in order to provoke the reader some more, to push his glance towards texts which are implicitly or explicitly part of this text.

The multitude of voices is not going to help, but the drawing of a scheme calls for some lighthouses.

part two | part three

Text © Giacomo Croci

Images © Andrea La Rocca