Eucharistia
Starting with television up until today’s internet-as-scroll, it appears as if electronic images have revitalized allegedly surpassed attitudes towards them. Mythical fetishistic rituals of idolatry, in which images are presented against the backdrop of music and repetition —as something to be felt or even touched— are once again the cornerstone implicitly structuring all other social relations. There’s no longer a clear distinction between image and spectator since, following John of Damascus’ ancient advice, these divine images are not only meant to be embraced with the eyes but also with the lips and the heart. These are images that call for the entire body and not only the mind. Like the eucharistic ritual, they become the bridge mediating between internal life and objective reality, individual and society. In the acoustic space, or as music composer Raymond Murray Schafer called it, ‘the soundscape’, spectators no longer own or capture images through their eyes, instead they move about this artificial scenery. In this context, imagination ceases to be described as an inventive subjective ability, ideally practiced in solitary contemplation, and starts being conceived as movements performing sense within a landscape composed of accumulated images and sounds.