Light powers

Images everywhere you look - on the wall as well as in your hand. The visual is in motion: the boundaries shift between mass media, collectibles, and educational content. Cinema is learning to adapt to digital production and distribution conditions. The fine arts see their claim to autonomy shaken by economic, aesthetic, and political shocks. The common critiques of this phenomenon have many names: "simulation," "culture industry," "spectacle." Those who speak this way divide the world: on one side are the images, on the other the critical minds. But there is no such thing as critical innocence. Those who deny this block the path to visual maturity. It is precisely this maturity that can conceive of images different from the prevailing ones. Sometimes essayistic, sometimes in dialogue form, "Lichtmächte" explores the fields of film criticism, art criticism, art history, and political analysis for a discerning audience.