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Iconomy: Towards a Political Economy of Images argues that imagery of all kinds has become a definitive force in the shaping of contemporary life. While immersed in public politics and private imaginaries, such imagery also operates according to its own logic, potentialities, and limitations. This book explores viral imagery—the iconopolitics—of the pandemic, U.S. Presidents Trump and Biden, Black Lives Matter, as well as the rise of a “black aesthetic” in white artworlds. Having arrived at the term “iconomy” in the years just prior to 9/11, and tracking its growing relevance since then, Smith argues that its study does not require a discipline serving nation states and globalizing capitalism but, instead, a deconstructive interdiscipline that contributes to the politics of planetary world-making.
“A well documented and welcome history of the genesis of a new concept: iconomy.” – Peter Szendy, David Herlihy University Professor of Comparative Literature and the Humanities, Brown University, and author of The Supermarket of Images.
List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Epidemic Images; Part I A Brief History of Iconomy, 1. A Strange Image: Seeing the Dreaming, 2. Iconoclash in Byzantium, 3. Commodities and Chains, 4. The Image in the Era of Its Technical Reproducibility, 5. Spectacle: Architecture and Occlusion, 6. Iconomy: What’s in a Name?; Part II Iconoclash, 7. The Spike-Crowned Virus, 8. Trumpmania, 9. Incident at Powderhorn, May 25, 2020, 10. Videodeath 1991 and 2020: King vs Floyd, 11. The Contest of the Images, 12. Image War, Civil War? January 6, 2021, 13. White Artworlds/Black Aesthetics, 14. The Trial: Aggressive Non-violence; Part III Toward Political Iconomy, 15. Iconomic Value: An Accounting; Index