Why is Visual Studies a hotspot of attention at this time? Whose interests are being served? Is this inquiry merely a response to the new realities of global culture, or is it producing that culture, and can it do so critically? Thinking globally, but from the particular, ‘local’ position of the History of Art and through the medium of the visual image, a distinct aesthetics emerges, a science of the sensible that in our time accepts the thin membrane of images as the way globalisation is unavoidably perceived. How can theory learn from contemporary art practices engaged in stretching that membrane, providing depth of fi eld, slowing the tempo of perception, and allowing images to expose a space of common political action? What does ‘world opinion’ mean in the context of global images? What are the implications for a critical Visual Studies that resists inequities by rubbing the global imagination against the grain? Can Visual Studies enter a field of negotiation for the move away from European hegemony toward the construction of a globally democratic, public sphere?
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