Pathogenic images: support for studies of image disorders based on the clinical case and the Warburg method

Abstract

Based on the clinical case of Aby Warburg, the proposal of this article is to present support for a reading of the image as a pharmakon. As such, we have utilized fundamental concepts from the Science of Culture proposed by Warburg, such as his image theory and his method, which reject any "exclusively aestheticizing" attempt to understand visuality and images. The Warburg method presupposes the capacity of images to impact, capture and transform views by generating environments. As this environment bears the potency of a pharmakon, we have analyzed a current example that corroborate Warburg's diagnosis of the potentiality of images: the strategy of the tobacco industries, through the performance of Brazilian sportsman Ayrton Senna, anchored in an image industry.