Towards the Image: An Introduction to ‘Bildwissenschaften’ and Visual Culture Studies - Einzelansicht

Lecturer: Anna-Helena Klumpen

Today’s increasingly technological and communications based culture is deemed to be particularly visual. We encounter visual images in every area of our lives, from newspapers to the Web, from the sciences to the humanities, to advertisements and films. Yet, ‘What Is an Image’? What Do they Do? And ‘What Do Pictures Want’? In what ways do visual media structure our ‘Ways of Seeing’ the world and relating to each other? What role do images play within the scientific and/or artistic research process, and, finally, what kind of knowledge does the visual produce?

Discussing these and other related questions, the module will familiarize students with key concepts and methods of contemporary critical image theory. The German ‘Bildwissenschaften’ and the anglophone Visual Culture Studies are two exciting new areas of study that emerged with the turn towards the visual proclaimed at the end of the 20^th century by scholars Gottfried Boehm (‘iconic turn’) and W.J.T. Mitchell (‘pictorial turn’). Rather than focusing on fine art alone, these academic fields look at a range of art, media, and visual images, and this, from an interdisciplinary perspective, integrating approaches and methods from i.a. Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Art History, Sociology, Philosophy and Ethnology. Taking as point of departure the renowned exchange of letters between Boehm and Mitchell, ‘Pictorial versus Iconic Turn’, we are going to read the English translations of selected programmatic texts by representatives of ‘Bildwissenschaften’ as well as seminal articles by international scholars in Visual (Culture) Studies and other related fields (i.a. Hans Belting, Horst Bredekamp, James Elkins, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Irit Rogoff, Georges Didi-Hubermann, Aby Warburg, John Berger, Hubert Damisch, Mieke Bal).

Thereby, the scientific module will also introduce methods and techniques used to critically analyze contemporary ‘visual culture’, from art and photography, to television, film and electronic media, using a variety of overlapping analytic frameworks. The module seeks to devise a set of conceptual instruments to describe and theorize the aesthetic, epistemological, social and political dimensions of ‘visual images’. Thereby, we will also reflect on the ‘digital image’, looking at the ways in which new media, enabling global ‘flows’ of images, reshape contemporary visual culture (Appadurai 1996). Finally, we will also touch upon recent debates on ‘artistic research’ and the ‘epistemology of aesthetics’ (Mersch 2015).

The primary goal of the module is to get an overview of recent theoretical approaches in ‘Bildwissenschaften’ and Visual Culture Studies, and to develop analytical and critical skills for reading, examining and presenting academic papers. Each student is encouraged to take the ‘responsibility’ for one of the course readings, either individually or in groups, and to present the text to his/her peers (article summary, reflection and analysis). To reflect on the interrelation between visual culture and key concepts on the ‘image’, we will apply theoretical concepts to objects from contemporary art and media as well as to other cultural phenomena. Students are explicitly invited to put their own artistic work into theoretical perspective, for instance by critically engaging with the texts through artistic means. The aim is to disclose the productive interactions that arise when crossing over between academic theory and artistic practice. Ideally, at the end of the module, students will be able to give their own account on the theoretical debates.

The module is split into three blocks with an introductory and feedback session. Attendance to all meetings is compulsory. The logistics and the content of the block seminars will be presented within the introductory session, which will take place on Friday Oct 25, from 10:00 to 12:00. Course reading will be made available via e-mail after the first session.

For enrollment, please send an e-mail indicating your academic background to: anna-helena.klumpen@mailbox.org

Raum und Zeit

Introductory session: Oct 25, 10:00-12:00

Block 1: Nov 15 and Nov 16, 09:00-17:00

Block 2: Dec 13 and Dec 14, 09:00-17:00

Block 3: Jan 10 and Jan 11, 09:00-17:00

Feedback session: Feb 7 (to be announced)

Raum: 004, Bauhausstraße 15

Attendance, active participation, presentation and paper (presentation in written form). The paper is to be submitted at the end of the winter term, by Tuesday, March 31, 2020, inclusive. The presentations can be held in groups, papers may respectively be written by multiple authors.