Granularities of dispersion and materiality: Visualizing a photo archive about diaspora

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Marian Dörk
• Subject Area: Image and Language Processing, Computer Graphics and Visualisation, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous and Wearable Computing ; Art History
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 510079995

"Granularities of dispersion and materiality" will devise theoretical and technical concepts for the scholarly visualization of digitized photo archives. The project will exhibit particular sensitivity towards the specific characteristics of one photo collection documenting Jewish diaspora. The project builds on research in cultural studies, digital humanities, information visualization, and human-computer interaction. Coinciding with the material turn and the increasing number of digital images the perception of physical, photographic archives has changed. Photographic estates are increasingly held by museums, foundations, and institutes, and, at the national level in Germany, a Bundesinstitut für Fotografie is emerging, where knowledge dissemination is likely to be a major focus (Bundesbeauftragte BKM 2021). While great efforts have been made in recent years in digitization and online publication, the modes of presentation continue to rely on grids of thumbnail images of the same size and format, which, however, are arguably not able to harness the potential that lies in digital access. Our research aims to find means of making the dimensions of processuality, selection, and materiality, which have been left behind as traces in the archives, but must also be actively recognized as such tangible through interactive visualizations. It addresses the need for transdisciplinary research that recognizes such immanent traces to develop approaches for their legible and explorable representation. While there are many visualization techniques that offer distant aggregate overviews of abstracted data, there are still few that preserve the unique visuality of a collection. So far, especially in the context of humanistic data, no comprehensive design space exists to bridge distant with close views in meaningful ways. With this research we propose to design and evaluate visualization and interaction techniques to enable shifts between different levels of granularities with regard to semantics, relations, hierarchies, photographic processes, and visual elements that are hidden inside photo archives, allowing users to traverse genuinely digital archive spaces. Finally, by closely reflecting on our research processes we aim to contribute to theory building on methodological use of visualization techniques in visual culture studies. The priority program Das Digitale Bild and its research network turn their attention to a visuality that has so far received little attention. We want to contribute to the efforts of formalizing and reflecting phenomena, theories, and practices through joint transdisciplinary exchange. Acknowledging the design of digital interfaces as a crucial moment of knowledge production and dissemination, we will oscillate between all three modes—with an emphasis on practices as design-oriented research that makes, breaks, reflects, iterates, evaluates, and theorizes interfaces.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 2172: The digital Image