This book takes its title from a symposium held at the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, from 22 to 24 April 1993. It examines the relationships between art, design, theoretical reflection and public sphere. The essays, correspondence, pictorial contributions and editorial material centre around contemporary developments in visual culture, understood as an aspect of the public domain, and the specific part played by art and design within this culture. The authors were selected on account o not only their professional activities but their readiness to think deeply about their specialisms in a broad intellectual context. Together, they offer a variegated repertoire of styles of thought and modes of operation within visual culture as a whole. This book aims to present their views and to bring out the relationships and contrasts between them. The choice of this structure represents a radical enlargement of the common ground shared by the visual disciplines and philosophy. The artist's
