The contributions to this volume concern the question of the
relationship of the visual sciences to visual culture studies. Of
particular importance was the question of the political function of
these approaches. The volume attempts to relay the present discussion
and invite readers to participate in ongoing debates. Theoretical
homogeneity is not the goal - there are contributions that support the
main suppositions of the visual sciences, and there are contributions
that expressly contradict that position. Those approaches supporting
visual culture studies accuentuate the political dimension of pictures
and the theories that reflect it, whose development on the other hand
has been associated with the social and economic changes of the last
decades.