ABSTRACT

Byzantine iconoclasm concerned power, authority, legitimacy and the powerful bearing and purpose of images in this world as much as in the divine world.1 By this statement, I do not wish to profane the issue, but affirm the actual power that images exert on human beings irrespective of time. The simple fact is that the emotional impetus of visual media is in general much stronger than the manipulative effect or influence of any other medium. Consider the mass media of today and the explosive speed of processing and sharing information through the web. Still, today images are more powerfully influential than words for drawing attention to an event, or advocating or discrediting an ideology, belief or rumour. Visual experiences are stronger and remain with us longer. Two horrific examples are the tormented, naked Vietnamese girl Phan Thi Kim Phúc, running for her life after the Napalm bombing in the Vietnam War, 8 June 1972, and the young Afghan girl Sharbat Gula, with horror-filled green eyes, staring at us, on the front page of National Geographic magazine in 1985. Who can ever forget these images? Maybe we have forgotten exact contextual data, background and framework or guiding principles in terms of politics and ideology, sacred or profane. However, what we never forget are the emotions and sensations these images evoked.