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For the Doctoral Summer Seminar FilmEU Dublin I presented my PhD research (‘The Denied Image: Art Interventions Between Iconoclasm and Institutional Critique’) which explores the idea of Iconoclasm as a lens through which to investigate, question and analyse different aspects of iconoclasm as creating energy. The origins of this line of research can be traced back to Dada but also to the concept of the détournement in the Situationist International movement, not only as defacement and alteration of pre-existing images, but also as a general attitude to express dissent and opposition to official narratives and as a way to subvert and resist authority. This method was used also by some radical artists working within cinema as well, where part of the artistic process was the alteration of films like in the case of Isidore Isou who believed he had initiated the “deconstructive” phase of cinema. Isou’s scratches over the image provides a referent for artistic practices based on the intervention into pre-existing images in a critical and destabilising spirit. So far, I have done some research on Appropriation Art and Institutional Critique artists through mapping various iconoclastic practices within the contemporary art context. Thanks to this, I am having new understandings about this seemingly negative stance and on the deeper motivations behind it, which informs my on-going art practice based on the idea of image cancellation and visual denial. My studio practice therefore, responds to the outcomes of my theoretical investigations and vice-versa. Since the beginning of my Ph.D. I have created several new series of “appropriated artworks” using existing artefacts, but also new paintings and photographic works (www.gianluca-cosci.com). With my presentation I would like to share my findings on Iconoclasm as a fighting tool against power’s hierarchies and its logics that induce restricted views and visual losses reflected in my photographic series, made of details that frustrate the viewer showing only a glimpse of the whole picture. In this partial vision I try to undermine and expose the convention of norms present not only in our everyday life, but also in the creative process itself where art can be perceived as a very sophisticated and effective instrument of propaganda that can be used and manipulated at will, according to the power holders' agenda. For this reason, I would like to use a subtle iconoclastic attitude to observe and undermine our reality in a different, unexpected and ultimately subversive way. Gianluca Cosci, June 2022