Ancient Images and Contemporary Sensoria

Ancient Images and Contemporary Sensoria Proposal for a paper (20 minutes) for the Classical Association’s Annual Conference 2016 Jacobus Bracker, M.A., Hamburg

Image-related reception studies usually deal with formal visual aspects of the images and their relation to the literary tradition alone, leaving other sensual aspects aside. When looking at certain types of images like relief, sculpture, or film it becomes apparent that not only other of the classical five senses are involved in the perception process but also senses like proprioception. However, images possess the ability to elicit and channel certain sensory responses of their viewers (cf. Gosden 2001). They accentuate specific parts of the socially and culturally created sensorium in which the reception situation is embedded. It follows that a change in the sensory qualities – for example when a still image is referenced in a moving image – may change the perceived meaning and viewers’ responses. Images may also through their sensory properties reflect the valuing of certain sense expressions over others in a certain culture. The paper will investigate examples from Greek vase painting (Greeks fighting Persians, Achilleus and Penthesilea) and relate them to contemporary film (300 [Zack Snyder, USA 2006], Avatar [James Cameron, USA 2009]) to show that changes of meaning attached to certain images do not only depend on transformations in form, content, or iconography but also on changes of the different senses addressed by these images embedded in different sensoria. It will be argued that the observation of the sensory aspects is an important amendment of reception studies and that the semiotic and phenomenological methods to analyse such aspects have to be developed and integrated (cf. Grabbe 2015) to better understand i.a. the conveyed meanings or functions of images in identification processes. CV Jacobus Bracker is a research assistant with the Archaeological Institute at the University of Hamburg and works on his PhD-project “Erzähltheorie für antike Bildmedien” (Narratology for Ancient Visual Media). He studied classical archaeology and prehistory at the University of Hamburg and received his MA with a thesis on “Der Blick aus dem Bild auf griechischen Gefäßen” (The Gaze at the Viewer on Greek Vessels). His main research interests are visual culture studies, (Bewegt-)Bildwissenschaften, narratology, reception studies and semiotics. Recent Publications: Wandernde Bilderzählungen und die Erzählforschung in der Klassischen Archäologie, in: J. Bracker – A.-K. Hubrich (eds.), Die Kunst der Rezeption/The Art of Reception, Visual Past 2.1, 2015, 315–346; Antike Bilder als Signifikanten kultureller Einheiten im Film, in: L. C. Grabbe – P. Rupert-Kruse – N. M. Schmitz (eds.): Bewegtbilder 2012. Film als multimodales Phänomen und Synkretismus (Darmstadt 2013). Further, he is co-editor of the online-journal VISUAL PAST.