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.