Here is the repository for the research exercise I undertook while writing the article
"Mapping the Multifarious Image in the Global Time" following the symposium
Deluge & Globalization at the University of Geneva in June 2024 for publication
in the Artl@s Bulletin of Purdue University.
"The question that must be posed today is this: in the rising tide of things to see,
what image will be left on the shore when it retreats?
Where is that rebel who will be the embodiment of our current freedom?"
Marie-José Mondzain
icon
Following the symposium on the deluge of images we were proposed to write for a special volume of the Artl@s Bulletin under the title Floating Icons: Difference and Repetition in the Global Flood of Images.
This title, and specifically the terms 'floating icons' raised a lot of questions for me.
First, how to understand and redefine what is an icon today, then perhaps imagine and attempt to envision what floating icons could be...
For this purpose I ran an experiment searching online on different platforms and search engines for images responding to the different terms 'icons', 'an icon', 'the icon', 'iconic' and 'floating icons' .
Below you will find a tab for each term searched, and under each tab the screenshots of different browser and navigator configurations.
The searches presented below were done on March 30th 2025 between 5pm and 6pm GMT.
Screenshot of Google image search on Firefox browser in Private Window mode for "icon" (page 1, lines 1 to 11)
By omitting an article altogether, either definite or indefinite, the results are drastically different. The first and single religious painting appears only on the 11th line of results, amongst a majority of the computer symbolic shortcut. But soon afterwards, cultural images appear... (that is not counting the luxurious gigantic cruise boat named 'icon of the seas' as a cultural object).
Screenshot of Google image search on Firefox browser in Private Window mode for "icon" (page 2, lines 12 to 23)
First as famous feminine figures of style such as Twiggy, Audrey Heburn and Diana Spencer, followed by top models, singers... within which the Statue of Liberty, Michelangelo's David, the Great Sphynx and the Louvre Pyramid stand out. The first paintings are Van Gogh's Starry Night and Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. Expensive consumer goods such as collectible or racing cars compete.
Screenshot of DuckDuckGo image search results on Tor Browser for "icon" (page 1 and 2)
On the totally anonymous search, there is no trace of any cultural elements on the first nor on the second page.
