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There has been much debate about the ethics and effectiveness of the circulation of photographs of suffering. An analysis of commentaries and reviews of such photographs shows that the genre interpellates a particular spectator, for whom the "distance" of

The Active Objects series is the contribution of Brazilian artist and poet Willys de Castro (1926-1988) to Neoconcretism, which was an avant-garde movement in Rio de Janeiro from 1959 to the mid-1960s that changed the parameters of Brazilian art definitively. A typical Active Object is composed of a wooden structure covered with painted canvas that is hung on the wall like a regular painting - but the evident tri-dimensionality of the object purposefully contrasts with the flatness of its frontal surface. Thus the artist addressed the potential conflict between sculpture and painting to the benefit of a fruitful interdisciplinary practice. The reception of these works, however, is still based on Ferreira Gullar's formalist writings of the late 1950s, and does not consider Castro's poetic production, which informed the series. Based on poststructuralist theory, the article analyses his works in an attempt to understand their complex regimes of signification.

The popularity of visual literacy may have resulted, in part, from some school authorities rushing the process of determining school curriculum. This article argues that the haste is reflective of pressure placed on educational discourse to conform to neo-liberal reforms of the sector, and is not the result of a careful and complex debate within the education community. In Australia, such reform has contributed to the erosion of visual art as a discrete subject in the general curriculum. The article accounts for the fact that the lack of careful debate may be due to art educators rehearsing tired arguments for retaining the place occupied by visual art, which smack of sentimentality. The author examines the conceptualisation of visual art at a cultural and theoretical level, and argues that by considering the function art has traditionally played in relation to conceptions of human subjectivity, we may disclose the marginalisation of visual art as a signal of much larger threats to political and economic structures in democratic society. The article considers whether the absorption of 'art' within a broader preference for visual communication, graphic design, or design and technology, is symptomatic of a long-term cultural stagnation.