There is a strong tradition behind distinguishing between the concrete or material qualities of a sign, and its meaning or ideal qualities. And this applies to pictures too. It seems that it was not until Modernist art and design came along that this distinction started to become critical. But how is the distinction to be fundamentally understood? Pictures are not and never have been simply there, they ›came in to being‹, developed and are developing, and this process as such repeats itself over and over again in an individual human lifetime. Pictures are genetic in character. Examining that character represents one possible approach to distinguishing between the concrete and the ideal qualities of pictures. This first article will present general finds characteristic of early graphic expressions, that is to say,
the earliest emergence and development of pictorial quality in ontogeny. The subsequent second article, ›Picture Genesis and Picture Concept‹, will explain the demands made on a picture concept as revealed by the findings
The phenomenological findings presented in the first article, Early Pictures in Ontogeny, suggest theses relating to the definition of the picture, including its genetic character. These theses centre around scepticism about the view that copy and convention represent primary bases for two-dimensional products of no physical use, and that their own qualities were of either a material or ›merely‹ motoric or ›merely‹ sensory nature. Our propositions insist on the genetic and – even though not exclusively – universal character of early graphic products, and also their quality of having to be understood as two-dimensional phenomena, which means that they cannot be completely described as material or motoric or sensory
Vilém Flussers media theory reflects comprehensively upon the entire evolution of media from the very production of tools to early cave painting and on to the so called technoimages and digital culture. The process of abstraction in the course of media evolution leads to elements that cannot be any longer minimized and which again allow for the invertion of the process in the form of medial design; in the new media culture, man is no longer object or subject, but project. Thus, the last step of this process is not only the designing of images, but also of objects and bodies. The following contribution presents Flussers media theory in respect to this latest level with which Flusser anticipates the current developments.
The text discusses practices of image construction by photography in the social web or web 2.0. These practices are most evident in the social networks like Flickr.com, Myspace, Facebook or studiVZ. For this examples the different styles conventions of photography are described and it is shown how to analyze them.
Young users of virtual social networks are expected to increasingly exhibit themselves in the internet. Media reports in newspapers or television are criticizing this behavior. The article attempts to discover possible aspects of public exhibition in virtual communities and to analyse how a new body image is constructed via photographic self-portraits in virtual photo albums. Based on the semiotics of C. S. Peirce and considerations on photography by Roland Barthes, the article will show that digital self-portraits are not only maintaining the authenticity of the user, but are completing the information on his individual identity. Consequently, the young member constructs a self-contained, virtual body by exposing his photographs. Finally, it will be revealed by examining the emo subculture, how corporal construction of a virtual self is contributing to an individual, subcultural identity.
From their inception on technologies of the visual media have been applied in medical contexts. Especially the x-ray technology adapted filmic representation. These filmic images exceeded the discipline towards their public screenings in the form of a spectacle. In the early twentieth century the x-ray films offered a well-known form of entertainment. Following on this the contemporary medical images in television shows such as CSI or ReGenesis can be considered as continuations of the earlier spectacular images. But the crossover effects work into two directions insofar as the public medical images have influenced scientific imaging as some examples from nanotechnology clearly display.
The article deals with the production of monstrous bodies. Based on carefully picked examples, different strategies of visualization and readings are shown as they have developped between teratology and media since the beginning of the 19th century. The chosen material includes medical and freak photography of the second half of the 19th century as well as contemporary photographies and sculptures. First of all, the analysis concentrates on the mediatic and social production of monstrous (images of) bodies as well as the mise-en scène of the so-called ›biological realness‹ which forces the spectator to look at and judge upon the peculiarity of the the exposed bodies.
