Abstract:
This paper aims to discuss - by the interlocution of psychoanalysis, history of art and philosophy - the origins and effects of violent scenes broadcasting through mass midia. Focusing on Caravaggio’s work and on the amount of violent images broadcasted by TV News, we show that culture tries to dominate violent images traumatic potential through narratives that interpret and contextualize such a scene. However, modernity is a narratives’ destruction process, which launched contemporary failure in producing meaning and dominating trauma. For this reason, it compulsively repeats.
Keywords:
psychoanalysis; violent image; trauma; narrative; modernity