From Tempera to Ink to Code traces the remediation of Orthodox icons. It examines icons’ unexplored, other media: cheap print, the book and digital media. Its interdisciplinary, cross-medial approach draws upon the fields of media studies, art history, art practice, religious studies, history and bibliography to establish an alternative way of viewing and understanding the icon beyond its original medium. The study focuses on the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God as one of the most venerable Russian Orthodox icons. It traces the Vladimir icon’s process of remediation from tempera on wooden panel to loose print, to bound codex and to digital form. It brings into focus the icon’s less researched, mass-produced media and applies the methods of art historical and bibliographic research to all media in question with equal scrutiny and attention. The dissertation provides a new way of looking at the storage, handling and display of icons in all their media. It categorizes the icon’s media into two groups: display media (tempera icons and loose prints) and storage/cache media (books and digital images). The display media invite veneration and thereby retain an “aura,” in the terminology of Walter Benjamin and David Morgan. Storage media, on the other hand, discourage veneration and, so, accrue no such aura. The study concludes that the loss of an object’s aura happens in unexpected aspects of remediation—in the binding, coding and, in a word, storing of information. The relationship that the study draws between the codex and hard drive has important implications for both book history and media studies, whereas its discussion of remediation, veneration and aura offer valuable contributions to the fields of iconology and iconography.

L’intérêt porté aux filmographies de cinéastes russes aussi différents qu’Andreï Tarkovski, Andreï Zviaguintsev et Kira Mouratova aboutit à la découverte d’une quête esthétique commune propre aux trois réalisateurs : l’élaboration d’une image cinématographique modelée par le temps autant dans sa matérialité filmique que dans sa puissance métaphorique. Cette approche artistique semble cristallisée dans le terme "kinoobraz" théorisé par Andreï Tarkovski qui s’impose dès lors comme un médium entre la recherche théorique et le champ d’expérimentation analytique de ce travail. Le terme russe "kinoobraz" traduit en français par « image cinématographique » recèle autant de problèmes que de potentiel théorique et analytique. La nature de cette recherche consiste donc en une appropriation, une réinvention et une mise à l’épreuve d’une notion ("kinoobraz"), trois opérations menées simultanément dans un parcours multiple. D’abord, une étude à la fois historique et théorique des conceptions russo-soviétiques de l’"obraz" (théologie des icônes orthodoxes à travers les textes de Pavel Florensky, l’"obraz" selon Sergueï Eisenstein, le "kinoobraz" de Tarkovski) révèle toute une série de résonances conceptuelles avec les théories françaises du figural (à partir du texte "Discours, figure" (1971) de Jean-François Lyotard). Cette confrontation entre la généalogie russe du "kinoobraz" et les propriétés esthétiques du figural, alimentée par la pratique de l’analyse filmique comparée, permet la redéfinition du "kinoobraz" comme un outil opératoire d’analyse. Ainsi, la mise à l’épreuve du "kinoobraz" dans le champ d’expérimentations analytiques sur le corpus de référence composé des films d’Andreï Tarkovski, Andreï Zviaguinstev et Kira Mouratova explore la spécificité temporelle de la matière filmique et du dispositif cinématographique. / Focusing on the cinema of three Russian different filmmakers such as Andreï Tarkovski, Andreï Zviaguintsev and Kira Mouratova, we discover a common aesthetic thread: the development of a film image molded by time both in film's materiality and in its metaphorical power. This artistic approach is crystallized by the term kinoobraz theorized by Andreï Tarkovski, whose ideas and films serve as a link between the theoretical research and the analytic experimentation of the present work. The Russian word "kinoobraz" is usually translated into English as “film image” but this translation does not reveal its full theoretical and analytic potentials. Our research aims at giving this notion its proper place, its reinvention and its use as a tool, all three conducted simultaneously on parallel tracks. Our exploration of this notion includes both historical and theoretical study of the Russian and Soviet conceptions of "obraz" through the theology of orthodox icons found in Pavel Florensky’s texts, its definition by Sergueï Eisenstein, and Tarkovski’s refinement as "kinoobraz". This study reveals a series of conceptual resonances with the French theories of figural (starting with Jean-François Lyotard’s work "Discours, figure" (1971)). The juxtaposition of the Russian genealogy of "kinoobraz" and the aesthetic traits of figural, nurtured by comparative film analysis, allows us to redefine kinoobraz as an analytic tool. Using this tool in the analytic experimentation based on the reference corpus of the films of Andreï Tarkovski, Andreï Zviaguintsev and Kira Mouratova leads us to a deeper understanding of the time specificity of the film matter and the cinematic "dispositif".