In view of the pictorial turn, but at the latest since the formulation of the pictorial act theory by the art historian Horst Bredekamp and its adaptation by the historian Gerhard Paul, images have received increased attention in the study of history. Against this background, a separate field of research was formed in the form of Visual History, which pursues a methodologically pluralistic approach to researching the visuality of history as well as the historicity of the visual. Visual History is understood as a "framework" in which different disciplines - from history and art history, communication and media studies, to political science and sociology - deal with the medium of the image.
The network project "Visual History. Institutions and Media of Image Memory" is dedicated in an interdisciplinary perspective to the study of image production and dissemination in the 20th century and examines the respective contribution to the constitution of communal image memories on the basis of selected media. The focus is on those institutions that produce, buy, sell, collect, archive or censor images and thereby make a central contribution to the control of a collective image household.
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Aims
The goal of the network project is to paradigmatically advance basic research on historical image collections. The research objects are the specific collections of the respective cooperation partners. The Georg Eckert Institute has a unique collection of international textbooks whose illustrations have not yet been studied as specific image sources. The dissertation project based at the Institute therefore deals with the textbook as a visual medium and examines the role of images in textbooks for the pictorial memory of modern societies, taking socialism as an example.
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Methodology
In four workshops, the project members discussed conceptual and content-related approaches to the research work together with the Scientific Advisory Board. Since the end of 2013, the communication and information platform developed in the project has been online at https:\\visual-history.de. It provides current insights into the research field of historical image research, connects the growing community and, in the best case scenario, should also initiate debates about theoretical and methodological approaches. In different contribution formats, the blog introduces central concepts and takes a closer look at actors in the image economy. The "News" section contains reviews of publications, exhibitions, and recent developments. Current research projects are also regularly presented and archived on the blog. Projects related to visual history can be entered by researchers in the visual history database themselves (http://www.visual-history.de/visual-history-forschungsprojekte/) or published via the editors of visual-history.de (redaktion@visual-history.de).
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Result
The final conference of the research project took place in Berlin from March 2-4, 2016. The results of the project were presented and the goals, methods and desiderata of visual history were discussed with representatives of various disciplines. The aim was to take stock of the work done so far, with a particular focus on methodological issues, and to develop possible perspectives for future research.
