VISION: the Art of Manifesting the Invisible

Abstract

The article addresses the theme of vision considering it as the ‘art of making things real’. To stretch the meaning we should say that vision is an act of faith, since itoperates as if the future were actual or as if immaterial entities were concrete. In this version, the concept of vision combines a common meaning with a metaphorical one. The term ‘vision’, in fact, simultaneously evokes the sense of sight and the mental exercises of imagining, forecasting, and representing. These functions are metaphorical because they transfer the meaning beyond the description, thus producing multiple interpretations. The core of this study is precisely the analysis of the performative nature of vision in different organizational domains. Four meanings of vision are discussed: representing, forecasting, normalizing, organizing. The investigation draws on organizational studies, philosophy of language, STS, urban sociology and human geography, and combines theory with case studies.

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