Iván de la Nuez

A fundamental dictionary against the noise and indigestion caused by the iconographic avalanche of contemporary culture. 

With phone cameras having become human appendages, we generate far more images than we can consume—images that subjugate us and sometimes compel us to rebel. Images that consume us, and that occasionally need to be consumed themselves. Images that, under the vast carpet of millions of reproductions, almost always conceal the imaginaries of this era. This era began with the new right-wing launching Lenin's headless body into the Berlin sky and extends to a present, where the new left has set Franco's headless body galloping across the ground in Barcelona. 

Essayist Iván de la Nuez defines this omnipresence as "iconocracy," a term that reinforces the tyranny of the image while also allowing us to counteract it. Indeed, without denying this oppressive ubiquity, the iconographic apotheosis can also be understood as an ecosystem of power and counterpower—a game of government and opposition that accommodates the radical purge of iconoclasm but also the critical digestion of "iconophagy." This concept, shared by Norval Baitello and Alfonso Morales, now lends its name to this dictionary, which presents itself as a single tapestry where voices and images shine with their own light in each chapter.