A virus as an icon
The 2020 pandemic in images
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13011182 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Júlia Sonnevend (0000-0002-2778-4971, New School, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 451-461 |
| Publication date | 2020-10-06 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Cultural Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2049-7113 • E-ISSN: 2049-7121 |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41290-020-00118-7 |
| PMID | 33042541 |
| OpenAlex | W3092142113 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 21 |
| References cited | 4 |
The 2020 coronavirus pandemic is puzzling from a visual point of view. There are millions of photographs published about the crisis every day, yet we can see the key actor, the virus, only in artistic representations. Most of us also have very restricted access to central sites of the crisis, as intensive care units, nursing homes, meat packing plants and prisons are often not available for photographic representation. At the same time, we are oversupplied by other images that try to capture the "essence" of the moment. This article analyzes three prevalent visual genres in connection with the ongoing pandemic: abstract representations of the virus and public responses to it, images of heroes and sinners, and photographs of the "stage": the iconic spaces including empty public buildings and busy domestic spaces. All these iconic representations try to grasp the "deep meaning" of the crisis through a particular scene or moment. Their expressive surfaces have become our key sources to imagine the coronavirus crisis, and to socially connect in a time of painful and prolonged physical distance
Aesthetics · Art · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · GRASP · Icon · Meaning (existential · Pandemic · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Sociology · Visual arts · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Computer Science · History · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Visual Culture and Art Theory
Three questions to start the sociological study of heroism
O discurso da Covid como fenômeno cultural na Ucrânia em 2020-2022
Visual representations of the Covid-19 pandemic and its iconography on a local/global scale
Individualized nationalism
Surviving a double lockdown
What can art history offer medical humanities
Forensic rhetoric
Covid-19
Generic visuals’ of Covid-19 in the news
There is nothing less spectacular than a pestilence’
Cultural Objects, Material Culture, and Materiality
The performativity of objects
Narratives of Outbreak and Survival in English-Language Cinema Prior to Covid-19
Making Obama iconic
A new cultural sociological approach to social movements
Tourism, photography, Covid-19 and representations of nothingness
Circulation of Coronavirus Images
Remembering Covid-19
Complex data and simple instructions
Do we need a posthumanist sociology? Notes from the Covid-19 pandemic
Horror Vacui
| Citations per year | 3.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |