Abstract
This book deals with very specific, sub-motives that seem to be self-evident, to which there is no need to pay any special attention, let alone theoretical reflection. Why bother with what role smoke, rubber or chairs play in visual culture? It turns out that even from the analysis of apparent nothingness, general and principled conclusions can be drawn (and the author mainly thanks Erasmus of Rotterdam and his Praise of Folly for this uplifting and entertaining insight).
The book wants to suggest that we pay too little attention to individuality, obviousness and "banality" in (not only) visual culture, even though we are completely surrounded by them like Jonah by the whale. The essays deal with various aspects of mass visual culture as it overlaps and intersects with traditions of visual art and with other discourses of thought, communication and representation.
Each essay forms a crossroads, a crossroads where disparate participants come together to negotiate and analyze partial details from their points of view. These particular phenomena are always a certain "pars pro toto", plucked from the volatile stream of digital, street and mass media experiences.
The phenomena of everyday, "unimportant" visual experiences mainly do not need to be subjected to critical evaluation, but above all we must notice them at all as "the world we live in" (as Jindřich Chalupecký would say).