This project analyzes the role of visual imagery in the production and communication of knowledge. It has become clear that the natural sciences are not exclusively logical and discursive disciplines but that their research is carried out in images, and that images have enormous relevance in the communication of knowledge. This underscores the importance of learning about the historical function and the theoretical structure of visual knowledge. The focus of this project is on the »digital divide«. The digitalization of the sciences appears to be an epistemologically especially relevant problem. Since its advent the instruments for the production of visual knowledge as well as the conditions having to do with gaining knowledge (for example, huge amounts of data which must be brought into an interpretable state) have changed with time. The goal of this project is primarily to investigate the epistemic status of visual images.

The project will be carried out on three levels:

a)  theoretical aspects of images and media

b)  the investigation of the scientific practice of image production and usage.

c)  the analysis of the visual communication of knowledge to the public.

 

a ) Theoretical aspects of images and media

The epistemic status of knowledge differs according to the form of the media in which it is communicated (number, image, text) even though these differences have not yet been investigated systematically. The investigation of the visual as a unique form of knowledge with specific potential as well as specific limitations (especially with respect to non-knowledge or ambiguous knowledge) serves to reveal conditions of the production of knowledge. The question is pursued regarding how image strategies in the natural sciences such as tables, diagrams, photographs and digital images are to be positioned between image and text. The central question is to what degree transformations between various forms of portrayal can change the knowledge which is represented. (Christina Hanke / Dieter Mersch, Uni Potsdam, European Media Sciences and Martina Heßler, HfG Offenbach)

 

b) The investigation of the scientific practice of image production and usage

In recent studies it is assumed that in order to understand the function of pictures and their epistemic status it is necessary to look at not only the end product but above all at the practice and instrumental conditions of the production of images . The focus of studies is on how digitalization has changed scientific practice as well as publication practice. Methodologically this step of research will be based on the ethnological observation of scientific practice, on interviews as well as on a historical analysis of the introduction of digital techniques into scientific work.

 

c)  Visual communication of knowledge

Images represent not only what they portray. Their meaning emerges basically in context and, correspondingly, the transformation of images into another context changes their epistemic status and leads to a shifting of their meaning. The same images have different meanings depending on whether they appear in a professional journal or in a popular magazine or in a newspaper.

Peter Weingart, speaking of the »Medialization of Science«, points out changed conditions regarding the production and publication of scientific images (Weingart 2001). This is significant because of the heightened pressure on science to legitimate itself in light of the competition for public acceptance and financial support. Images are particularly suited to arouse fascination and attention. The possibilities of digitalization, thus the thesis, have changed the role and significance of images in the communication of knowledge.

To examine the significance of the onset of the digitalization of images, a diachronic investigation of image-making in the second half of the 20 th century with regard to imagery traditions, aesthetics and their interrelationships with texts appears to be a good approach on one hand. On the other hand the central question is as to which images reach the public and conversely how »public« images have an effect on the production of images within science. For this purpose, the mutual effects of images in the public communication of knowledge, the discourse within a discipline and among lay persons are investigated.

 

Case Studies

These questions are studied using two case studies, nanotechnology (Jochen Hennig, HU-Berlin, Helmholtz-Center, Das Technische Bild) and astronomy (Dr. Ralf Adelmann). The first reason for this choice of case studies is that in both of these areas of science the use of images is constitutive to the process of gaining knowledge. Further, both fields have high public relevance. Second, with this choice two areas of knowledge are chosen which work with different levels of investigation: the nano area on the one hand and the cosmos on the other. Third, digitalization of visual knowledge plays a large role in both fields. Fourth, the focus in the one area is on a laboratory science and in the other on a science in the field. While nanotechnology is a typical example of a laboratory science and astronomy as a field science, Knorr-Centina's thesis postulates that through photography and digitalization, astronomy is becoming gradually transformed into a laboratory science. For this reason, an investigation of the question regarding the effects of a »digital divide« is particularly pertinent. In addition, by using the comparison of these two scientific areas, the one a laboratory and the other a field science, it makes it possible to examine the topic of »visual cultures« in the natural sciences.

 

Duration: 01.04.2005 – 30.06.2008

 

Conferences

Vom roten Mars und runden Atomen. Bilder von Wissenschaft und Technik zwischen öffentlicher Wissensvermittlung und Faszinationsproduktion – Tagung im Rahmen der BMBF-Förderinitiative »Wissen für Entscheidungsprozesse« und des DFG-Schwerpunktes 1143 »Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft«, 25./26. Oktober 2007 in Offenbach, Hochschule für Gestaltung program (pdf)

Logik der Bilder. Wissenschaftliche Visualisierung und Bildlichkeit – Workshop der Projektgruppe »Visualisierung«, 20./21. Juli 2006 in Berlin (BBAW)

 

Further reading

- Hennig, Jochen (2006): »Lokale Bilder in globalen Kontroversen. Die heterogenen Bildwelten der Rastertunnelmikroskopie.« In: Inge Hinterwaldner / Markus Buschhaus (Hg.): The Picture's Image. Wissenschaftliche Visualisierung als Komposit. München, S. 243-260.

- Hennig, Jochen (2006): »Die Versinnlichung des Unzugänglichen – Oberflächendarstellungen in der Zeitgenössischen Mikroskopie.« In: Martina Heßler (Hg.): Konstruierte Sichtbarkeiten. Wissenschafts- und Technikbilder seit der Frühen Neuzeit. München, S. 99-116.

- Hennig, Jochen (2006): »Aspekte instrumenteller Bedingungen in Bildern der Rastertunnelmikroskopie.« In: Helmar Schramm / Ludger Schwarte / Jan Lazardzig (Hg.): Instrumente in Wissenschaft und Kunst – Zur Architektonik kultureller Grenzen im 17. Jahrhundert. Berlin, S. 377-391.

- Hennig, Jochen (2006): »Changes in the Design of Scanning Tunneling Microscopic Images from 1980 to 1990.« In: Joachim Schummer, Davis Baird (Hg.): Nanotechnology Challenges: Implications fpr Philosophy, Ethics and Society. Singapore u.a., S. 143-163. (Projekt Visualisierung)

- Heßler, Martina (2005): »Bilder zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft. Neue Herausforderung für die Forschung.« In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Jg. 3 / H. 2, S. 266-292.

- Heßler, Martina (Hg) (2006): Konstruierte Sichtbarkeiten. Wissenschafts- und Technikbilder seit der Frühen Neuzeit. München.

- Heßler, Martina (2006): »Einleitung. Annäherung an Wissenschaftsbilder.« In: dies. (Hg.): Konstruierte Sichtbarkeiten. Wissenschafts- und Technikbilder seit der Frühen Neuzeit. München, S. 11-37.

- Heßler, Martina (2006): »Der Imperativ der Sichtbarmachung. Zu einer Bildgeschichte der Unsichtbarkeit.« In: Bildwelten des Wissens, 4/2, S. 69-79.

- Heßler, Martina (2006): »Von der doppelten Unsichtbarkeit digitaler Bilder.« In: Zeitenblicke, 5 / 3. Themenheft »Digitale Medien und Wissenschaftskulturen«. http://www.zeitenblicke.de/2006/3/Hessler

- Heßler, Martina (2006): »Die Konstruktion visueller Selbstverständlichkeiten. Überlegungen zu einer Visual History der Wissenschaft und Technik.« In: Gerhard Paulmann (Hg.): Visual History. Ein Studienbuch. Göttingen  2006, S. 76-95.

- Mersch, Dieter (2006): »Naturwissenschaftliches Wissen und Bildliche Logik.« In: Martina Heßler (Hg.): Konstruierte Sichtbarkeiten. Wissenschafts- und Technikbilder seit der Frühen Neuzeit. München, S. 405-420.