New approaches to Art and visual culture
CHArt Nineteenth Annual Conference
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CONVERGENT PRACTICES New approaches to Art and visual culture |
Katja Kwastek, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
Visualising Art History
Without denying the advantages of increased quantity and quality of digital imaging, analysis and reconstruction of works of art, this paper focuses on another aspect of digital visualisation: the visual structuring and organisation of knowledge as a whole.
The non-linear and interactive structure of hypermedia allows new forms of analysis and representation of art historical objects, an annotation and discussion of works and methods beyond the slow and ritualised field of printed academic essays and the cross-linking of different layers of knowledge. It could help change the chronologically-determined concept of cultural history into a more flexible form, viewing stylistic and cultural parallels and diversities.
Recent German projects in the fields of e-learning, digital networking and Internet-based annotation have proved that digital media can lead art history to new, more transparent and immediate forms of communication and co-operation, using spatial and structural metaphors to create and discuss a new and open 'picture of knowledge'. To this end two central claims have to be met, one technical and one conceptual: a 'digitally renewed' art history needs an expert infrastructure to facilitate the opening up, annotation and linkage of material and investigations, but it also depends on the disposition of academics to participate in new forms of intellectual discourse in a more transparent academic community.