Le immagini tecniche e l’incantamento della farfalla

Abstract

In his work, L'Imaginaire, very much praised by Barthes and Augè, Sartre provides us with useful tools to understand the importance of that violent revolution, which started, according to Benjamin, with the arrival of technical images. Specifically, Sartre's analyses highlight how the transparency of technical images could induce the viewer to enter a passive condition. Such condition is, to some extent, metaphorically rendered by Schnabel in his Le scaphandre et le papillon, through Bauby’s character; however, building on Deleuze’s analysis, it will be shown that Schnabel’s work goes beyond that, providing a yet more articulated reflection, which unifies aspects analyzed both by Sartre and Deleuze, arriving at a double conception of impotence.