Out of This World in Two Parts

What is the role played by the beholder in Modernity and in contemporary world? While we are witnessing a progressive denigration of the visual act—understood here as a cognitive and initiatory action—, the visual image has now assumed an increasingly central role in the epistemological trend of making architecture and artistic production. This essay tries to historically frame the slow process of regimentation of the vision, and its liberation that has occurred in recent times thanks to the experiments conducted in the context of the contemporary art; thus the space of artistic experience is redefined as a place in which one sees oneself see.