关键词: 全球化, 重新着陆, 世界图像, 图像学

Abstract:

Bruno Latour argues that the impasse between contemporary globalization and localization has left humanity’s political existence in an “off-ground” state, severed from material reality. Consequently, he advocates for “Re-landing” to reconstruct a common horizon, conceptualizing Gaia as an active agent encompassing the Critical Zone and life processes to establish a new geo-social order beyond the framework of traditional modernity. However, critics contend that Gaia, as a shared vision, may struggle to account for the continuity of history fully and could obscure its impact on present-day inequalities. In contrast, W.J.T. Mitchell’s approach to being terrestre is rooted in his theory of iconography. He examines the significance of images by transforming the debate between globalization and localization into a dialectic of world imagery. Mitchell contends that globalization’s state of being out of this world does not signify the complete dissolution of past ideologies. Instead, these ideologies reemerge in the present, reimagined as venerable icons from past eras. Unlike Latour, Mitchell does not create a new Gaia reality through iconoclastic actions. Since an iconoclast cannot destroy an image, its demise signifies its rebirth in other visual forms. However, this rebirth emerges as a metapicture, which significantly unsettles the idol as a world image. As a result, it transforms the idol of world imagery into an object of disinterested aesthetic contemplation.

Key words: Globalization, Re-landing, World Picture, Iconography