Abstract

The article reviews various definitions of the notion of ‘enstrangement’, before discussing its application in a range of artforms and their related social structures, culminating with the present period which the author labels convocational art. It is argued that this period is the most recent in which language has obfuscated our perceptions of the world. Specific compositional devices are presented as a means of applying the Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky’s strategy of ostranenie, here translated as ‘enstrangement’, in order to reveal this self-imposed deception, and the argument is demonstrated and illustrated with a series of the author’s images, Seeing Through Writing.