Imagery in the 21st Century edited by Oliver Grau with Thomas Veigl The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts london, England Contents 1 Introduction: Imagery in the 21st Century Oliver Grau and Thomas Veigl Image Phenomena of the 21st Century 2 Current Screens Sean Cubitl 19 21 3 The Unmasking of Images: The Anachronism of TV-Faces Martin Schulz 4 Bio Art: From Genesis to Natural History of the Enigma Eduardo Kac 37 57 Machinima: On the Invention and Innovation of a New Visual Media Technology Thomas Veigl 5 6 Steps toward Collaborative Video: Time and Authorship Stefan Heidenreich 97 7 Imaging Science: The Pictorial Turn in Bio- and Neurosciences Olaf Breidbach 111 8 Toward New Conventions for Visualizing Blood Flow in the Era of Fascination with Visibility and Imagery 129 Dolores Steinman and David Steinman 9 Visual Practices across the University: A Report james Elkins II Critical Terms of the 21st Century 10 On Sourcery, or Code as Fetish Wendy Hui Kyong Chun 175 177 149 81 vi Contents 11 Cultural Interfaces: Interaction Revisited Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau 201 12 Feeling the Image: Some Critical Notes on Affect Marie-Luise Angerer 13 Web 2.0 and the Museum Peter Weibel 219 235 14 Kawaii: Cute Interactive Media Adrian David Cheok 245 15 Universal Synthesizer and Window: Cellular Automata as a New Kind of Cybernetic Image 269 Tim Otto Roth and Andreas Deutsch 16 Interdependence and Consequence: En Route toward a Grammar of Hypermedia Communication Design 289 Harald Kraemer Ill New Tools for Us: Strategies for Image Analysis 313 17 Visualizing Change: Computer Graphics as a Research Method Lev Manovich and Jeremy Douglass 18 " God Is in the Details," or The Filing Box Answers Martin Warnke 19 Media Art's Challenge to Our Societies Oliver Grau IV Coda 315 339 349 375 20 In and Out of Time: Is There Anything New Under the Cyber-Sun? Martin Kemp Contribulors Index 405 399 377 1 Introduction : Imagery in the 21st Century Oliver Grau and Thomas Veigl Never before has the world of images changed so fast; never before have we been exposed to so many different image forms; and never before has the way images are produced transformed so drastically. Images are advancing into new domains: private platforms, like Flickr with its billions of uploads or Facebook with several hundred million members, have become very powerfu l tools (figure 1.1, plate 1). Second Life, micromovies, or vj-ing are keywords for a ubiquitous use of images. Television is now a global field of thousands of channels (figure 1.2, plate 2); projection screens have entered our cities (figure 1.3, plate 3); a hundred thousand and one new videos are published every day, in video communities like YouTube and the interactive threedimensional world of images: a virtual and seemingly authentic parallel universe is expanding. This book offers systematic and interdisciplinary reflections on new forms of images and visualization. The historical development of images, between innovation, reneclion, and iconoclasm, is reaching a new level of global complexity in the twenty-first century. These transformations have hit a society that is to a large extent unprepared. Nevertheless, we have to recognize that we will not be able to handle the knowledge explosion of our lime without further development of new forms of visualization and "orders of visibility." Digita l images have become ubiquitous tools within Lhe global reorganization of labor. Through digital images, the o ld dream of talking architecture receives new impetus and an entire new arsenal of options. We a re witnessing the rise of the image as a virtual, spatial image-images that appear capable of changing interactively o r even "autonomously" and formu lating a lifelike, all-embracing audiovisual and sensory sphere where temporal and spatial parameters can be altered at will. Traveling Uuough time in 30 images, ART+COM (figure J .4, plate 4) allows us to dive into deepening layers of historic sights, while Googlc Earth (figure 1.5) opens up Earth's spaces to our eyes lo an unprecedented degree (figure l.6, plate 5). The digital image represents endless options for manipulation. These options also become avai lable for polilical iconography, which has a long tradition within art history but has only recently been discovered by political scientists. In addition, Oliver Grau and Thomas Veigl 2 THE CONVERSATION PRISM t \ Figure 1.1 The Convl.'mllion l'ri\m, plate I <htp:/w. lh l'Conver~a J JlJ ti onpr i sm.LOil>, Crcali\'C Commum. Sec Figure 1.2 T_visionaril/111. By kind permission of jeffrey Shaw, <hllp://www. icinema.unsw.edu.au/projccts/ prj_tvis_ll.html>. See plate 2. Figure 1.3 Atelie r Torce 2007/2009- 11/rnnesll, <ht tp://www.medicnJassade.com>. See plate 3. 4 Oliver Grau and Thomas Veigl Figure 1.4 Traveling through lime In .m image\. 13y kind perml'>\lon of ART+COM, <hltp:/fwww.arlcom .de>. 'icc plall' -1. Figure 1.5 Googk l:.arlh. 5 Introduction Figure 1.6 Prolll()lion for ,\\•utili, jamt's C<tmeron (dir.l, 2009. Sec plate ~. science, politics, and entertainment all profit from new dimensions in the creation of images and their emotive effects (figure 1.7). These new worlds of the image are creating democratic opportunities and risks, which require sensitive handling and expanded archiving projects; historians of science understand that images in the natural sciences arc not only empirical instruments, the}' are ke}'stones in the creation of knowledge and the "order of things"to use a t:oucaultian term. Images can certain!~ become imtruments of political hegemony; one only has to think of the manipulative use of satellite imilges to legitimize the Second Iraq War, which were submitted to the U.N. Securit}' Council b}' the United Stiltes. Critical image science has the goal of unmasking such politically motivated visualization strategies, of exposing manipulative image polilics, and of shaking the widespread naive faith in the truth of ~upo5edly objective documentary pictures. Oliver Grau and Thomas Veigl 6 Figure 1.7 Department for lmt~gc Science in C.octtweig, <hltp://www.Oashearth.com/?lat=48..i6S923&lon = IS.612l05&z=l8 1&r=33I&src=m\l>. llistorians understand images no longer as illustrations, but as historic documents sui seneris. Mathematics is fascinated by the beauty of visualized algorithms and their unpredictable chaotic forms (figure 1.8, plate 6), while astrophysicists and nanoscientists receive images out of the depths of the macro-cosmos and the microcosmos, respectively. Without massive developments to visualize complex ideas, stntcture!l, and systems, the explosion of knowledge we face today is not manageable. This process is inciting vital discussions about images in many disciplines. Images increasingly define our world and our cver)•day life: in advertising, entertainment, politics, and even in science, images arc pushing themselves in front of language. The mass media, in particular, engulf our senses on a daily basis. It would appear that images have won the contest with words: Will the image have the last word (figure 1.9, plate 7)? We face great difficulties in synthesizing the broad field ol the visual: what images arc and what they do, how they function and what effects they have-even the concept of the image cannot be clarified by an ontologica l or elementary definition. Int ro duction 7 Figure 1.8 Daniel While, Mtllltld/1/11/J 3D, 2009, <hllp://www.\kytopia.com/projcct/fractal/mandclbulb .html>. See plate 6. Images cannot be reduced to a specific technology (gravure printing or X-ray), to genres (portrait or silhouette), to practices (taking photographs or programming), to specific instruments or devices (pencil or microscope), to symbolic form~ (perspectives), to a social function (edification or diagnosis), to materiality or symbolism-and yet images operate in all of these. To manage the veritable deluge of images, a competence in images i'> vital, but this is lacking in our culture that is still dominated by writing. Illiteracy has largely been overcome in most countries, but anit:onism the inability to interpret images adequately-until very recently has not even been a matter of public conct'rn. Thus, a systematic ordering is indispensable for understanding the new image phenomena. It has been recognized that the '>tud\ of networks and the study of vi'iualizations of the'ie networks complement each other, much in the same wa> that Oliver Grau and Thomas Veigl 8 0 0 Noguchi um Storo Charles & R~ v GeorgN~ • . Figure 1.9 For imight in the increasing variety u l different vl\ualization methods across the discplne~. <http://www.\ i~ualcompxy. >. By kind permission ol M<lnucl Lima. Sec plate 7. see Introduction 9 --.. Inteifa~:.r --- J.. --Qlj ~ Q · ~ .,· (1 - a u 0 --9 ·- ~·- f Informat..J.fj)IT _~ Visnalizatie-'rr design theary · j_ -II " "fl 9 s ~ .... --r Figure 1.10 Knowledge Cartogri!phy, <hllp:/fwww.lmowlcdgcGtrlogr<tph)'.org>. archaeology cannot li ve wilhout self-reflective art history; so to systemalii'c our visualization methods, we must engage in complex net work studies (figure 1. 10). Recenlly, the High Throughput llumanities conference in Portugal 2 and the NETSCl 20 10 conference in Boston ' concentrated on this subject area. Moreover, numerom projects have emerged on the categorization and analysis of visualizations method~. (,erd Dirmoser's great )tudics on diagrammatics, for example, the monumcntnl <.!ingram J>erfcmnmlce Art Umte'<l, which shows the manifold network of artists, authors, imtitutions, and galleries; I.e' Manovich's Cultural Auafytirs; C..hrista Sommerer's Nt'llife; and jeffrey Shaw's T- \li\imwrium have to be mentioned here, to name just a few. Another pioneer project, Mall)' Eres, 1 is a public Web project allowing users to gather and visualize data, and then discuss their visualizations. The platform that visua lizations spur communication and social !nlernction tests the hypote~s and asks how these nclivitics may yield new imights into data. TI1ere is also some research being done in connection with the term "visual literacy": some educators nrc recognizing the importance of helping students to develop visual literac)' in order to survive and communic,lle in a highly complex wo rl d. ~ llowever, the ongoing image revolution requires that nil of us have the ability to 10 Oliver Grau and Thomas Veig l engage with images and the opportunity of continuing our image education. The concept of Life-long learning {LLI.) provides an adequate response to the fact that, in increa\lngly shorter spans of lime, our knowledge loses its power and impact once we leave school or university. While our written culture has produced a differentiated and dedicated pedagogy, our society still lacks educational programs dedicated to understanding images-to a degree where we can even speak of visual illiteracy. A further lack of knowledge central problem of current cultural policy stems from the seriou~ about the origins of audiovisual media. lhis stands in complete contradistinction to current demand'> for more media and image competence. The multitude of new pos~iblte in producing, projecting, and distribu ting images has led to the formation of new image genres. The spiral movement of image history from innovation, understanding, and iconoclasm has resulted in the twenty-first century in a globally interwoven fabric. In an age where man}' people arc skilled in using graphics nnd image-edi ti ng software, making home videos, and creating websites, we are now dealing with consumers and producers of visual culture. Former recip1ents of cultural products have become actor!> who extract their own meanings from what they see. This volume seeks to trace what seeing means on a social level, both in the arts and the worlds of popular images. Answers arc sought to essen tial que\tions such ac;: What impiration do these new worlds of images gain from art and/ or science? What inOuence does the given medium have on the iconic character of the image? What opportunilies and challenges do image dealer'> and museums face given the "liquidity" of the image? This volume, whose incubation began during the international conference "Gazing into thc 21st Century,"11 analyzes new image phenomena, c;uch as mad1inima, collective!} made videos, the images of bio art and the life sciences, and the scientific image in neurobiology and various other di~cplnes, and tllscusses new critical tenm like the Web 2.0 revolution, interface, software, cute engineering, database economy, new strategies to create emotional image worlds, the dramaturgy of hypermedia, nnd more. The book offer!> systematic discussion and critical scholarly reflect ion by some of the most inOuen tial researchers in the field of the inventory, classification, and historiography of the l<llest image worlds in the domains of publicity, art, entertainment, and science. In general we must ask ourselves whether the power of the image will supersede our current ability and quality of reflection, or if new worlds of images will enable new support for the development of human consciousness. We arc looking for more and more deeply understood, competent, and useful definitions of image phenomena. Finally, the volume examines new tools for image research in the early twenty-first century, as well as their potential in view of the need for scientific tools to deal adequately with the questions that challenge the humanities now and in the coming decade'>, tools not only for rc\earch, but ilho for museums, umversities, and schools. The goal is to ofler detailed di\cussions of image phenomena and landmarks to expand Introduction 11 visual competence concerning new image worlds and a lso to build cross-disciplinary exchanges hetween t:he humanities, arts, and natural sciences. The individual chapters clo not merely stand alone but also refer to each other. Ideas and models reappear viewed from different perspectives. The book should thus be understood as a collaborative text, where each contribution is a coherent discussion of a particular theme, yet in combination with the others represents a collection that is more than the sum of its parts. Although in many instances "visualization" means the use of imaging techniques to gain cognitive knowledge, it has another definition that is more precariOlJS: visualization as the translation of the invisible into the visible. This could be the trigger for "iconoclastic pan ic," 7 for even in technological and scientific imaging the resulting images are not entirely reliable. Confusion tends to arise in connection with the character of the images' construction, through interpretative distortions or even considera tions of aesthetic design. Yet here the ill usion of accessibil ity, of seeming presence, can practice an easy deception. Competence in image ana lysis is needed more than ever before. This can be facilitated by the realization that visualizations-as 1-lans Belting most importantly differentiates between the "visual" and the "visiblc"operate with technological adjustments. I Image Phenomena of the 21st Century The first section of the book introduces the subject, discussing new image phenomena that recently emerged in art, popular culture, and science. The contributions showcase various new visual technologies, their background of emergence, as well as their social and culturaJ impact. Along with visualizations from art, computer games, screen technologies, television, and online video platforms, particular attention is paid to life sciences such as medidne and neuroscience. Opening the discussion with contemporary screens, Scan Cubilt deals with the relationship between technologies and the public Hfc of citizens and consumers. He explores the database econo/11}', where screens are normative technologies that shape and articulate social structure and, in this way, arc the central tool of management of markets and populat ions. From this Cubilt deduces the necessity to observe media through examining the socia l organization in which they emerge. Martin Schulz uses examples from Michael Moore's Fnllrmlleit 9/11 to highlight the connection between face, mask, image, and medium with regard to telepresent images. From the fact that every instance of pictorial representation is followed by a chain ot prescriptions, Schulz argues that images are both subsequent and antecedent at the same lime. This anachronic imagery principle of masking demonstrates that modes of representation persist in new electronic media that have a much o lder history. 12 Oliver Grau and Thomas Veigl In science, the image has become an independent tool of thought. Images count as arguments and proofs; they document and project, model and simulate, show things visible and invisible. The '\Iobel Prize in chemistr} rewarding the initial discovery and later important developments of green nuorescent protein, GFP, was onJ}' awarded in 2008. Art, however, had made this a theme years before: The artist Eduardo Kac created a transgenic green nuorescent rabbit by inserting the DNA sequence of a Pacific jellyfish with GFP into t11e rabbit's DNA. Kac, who pioneered telecommunications art back in the 1980s, now more than len years later explores and experiments with the exploitation of genetic engineering technologies for creating new artistic visualizations. Ii~ exhibitions of bio- and transgenic art, which address key questions of our times that have emerged from the life sciences, have social ramifications and have provoked heavy public debate. Stressing the necessity of respect and care for the living organisms created, in his chapter Kac points out milestones ami the current status of these developments. llcrc the !>tep-wise shifts of ethically discussed boundaries are especiall}' apparent. It is well known that in just a few years the gaming sector has overtaken the film sector in terms of economic performance and has also created a large number of new genres. Discussing the historic development and current stau~ of macllinima, Thomas Veigl shows how social and cultural change, evoked by unanticipated user interaction with LOmputer games, is occurring in our new media environment. With examples of economically exploitable forms, which have provoked legal reverberations, Veigl argu~ that machinima has to be seen as an emancipatory new visual media technolo&ry that has far-reaching consequences for the future of computer games, legal questions of copyright, and established production techniques of computer animation, a~ well. Expanding video theory of recent years, Stefan lleidenrcich offers an approach for explaining the emergence of a ftllure Web-based video aesthetic. With reference to existing platforms such as Flickr, YouTube, or Online Games, Heidenreich argues that the increased variety of videos produced on the Web, such as videO\\ ikis or videoblogs, are currently being reshaped and will ultimately emerge in a new dominant form. Depending on the given conditions of our ecosystem the dominant form consolidates and sets the gl'neral condiliom for the crucial parameters of time and authorship, which are decisive for the aesthetic form. Discussion i) just beginning in the natural sciences about the role of new imaging techniques. although the theoretical and practical instruments for their analysis is lacking and in science education imnges are absent lrorn the curriculum, in spite of the fact that in the meantime they have become perhaps the most important tool of communication. It is significnnt that the two most important science journals, Nature and Scie11ce, have begun to engage with images, and between the lines rncnlion is often made now of the "art of ~cien." However, so far the natural sciences appear Introduction 13 to be unwilling to ~ubjct their basic ten~, which over the course of history have undergone dramatic changes, to rigorous scrutiny, as the current debate about brain research demonstrates. Although doubts arc now surfacing in this discipline about the veracity of their new image worlds, images arc still being utilized as arguments, while the extremely artificial conditions under which the images arc generated are hardly analyzed at all. Whereas the scientific images produced by Leonardo or Durer were drawings that were as accurate as poso;ible, today in medicine, for example, practitioners readily admit or even naunt the fact that the massive and increasingly "designed" use of images is common practice today when applying for research funds. Thu\, it is hardly surprising that more and more "science images" are being processed by advertising agencies: They create images that look like scientific images, which then replace the originals. The .same phenomenon can h<-.' observed in connection with images from nanotechnology. loday the life .sciences rely heavily on images to demonstrate the performance of models that otherwise could hardJy be communicated or e\en thought of. New vi!>ualization techniques arc needed; they arc bcmg produced as well as analyzed. In the area of neuroscience, Olaf Breidbach illustrates the necessity to overcome adaptations to former visual schemata to develop an alternative theory of brain functionality. For l3reidbach a skin-deep examination of the visual is lacking; he asks: How can models be used as tools to put forward certain hypotheses? Can they be ascribed a certain heuristic value? I low can we think in pictures, without taking them to be the reality we usc them to argue about? To select the right way of visualizing, Breidbach demonstrates a kind of experimental approach to using new types of pictures, model machines, and performances. Resulting from their practical experience as medical scientists and developers of sophisticated tools for visualizing blood now, Dolores and Oavid Stei nman provide first-hand insights into the challenges that medical text illustrators have confronted over the centuries: the integration of scientific truth, aesthetic trends, and established scientific and medical conventions. Like the bloodstream's dynamics, organic processes elude the human view, which make'> computer-aided imaging techniques indispensable tort imely diagnosis and therapy. The absence of a precleflnccl visua l vocalnilary makes it a necessity to develop both the medical technology ancl its novel visual conventions. \s an important representative of the American image science community, james Elkins pro\'ides an Interdisciplinary overview and classification of scientific visualizations, showing the di\'ersity in function and form of imaging practices. Based on the commonplace that ours is a visual culture and that learning today is increasingly done through images, Elkim argues for university-wide courses of image use to take up thl~ challenge and develop a more unified practice. Oliver Grau and Thomas Veigl 14 II Critical Te rms of the 21st Century The character of current images underwent radical changes in recent years. To discuss images at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we need <I critica l conception that retlects these changes to our theoretical foundations. The book's second section therefore deals with examinations of significant aspects ol computer-generated images, user interfaces, and emotive effects, a~ well as pre~ntaio and distribution of images. With a crilical view of new media studies moving in the direction of software studies, Wendy I lui Kyong Chun argue'> against theoretica l conceptions overestimating soun-e code at the expense of a network of machines and humans. She points out that source code serves as a kind of fetish and that the notion of thc user as superagent, buttressed by re<~l-tim computation, is the obverse, not the opposite, of this "sourcery." r:or a current concept of "image," the link between 1111age and interactiv1ty 1s decisive: the interface. Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau uncover till' roots of interactiw cultural i11ter(nce' in a variety of fields, such as social psychology, human computer engineering, cybernetics, interface des1gn, and Interact I\ e arts. They show how interactivity as a concept has innuenced media artists and researchers alike, and moreover has led to applications and appliance'> in the fields ol mobile computing, intelligent ambince~. smart homes, intelligent architecture, fashionable technologies, ubiquitous computing, and prrvasive gaming. Assessing the current renaissance of feelings and emotions, Marie-Luise Angerer sees a fllndamental shift in modes of "thinking the human" thnt is neurobiological rather than humanistic. Because there is no perception without af!ection, lor Angerer the affettive and emotional addressing of recipients of digital media leads to a massive manipulation of the bod}' by images (IWderflul), which connects the classic term of liberalization with image politics. Peter Weibel discusses the new role of the 11111\1!11111 under the aspects of \VI!b 2.0, user-generated content, anclthc new quality of intcractivity. In Weibel's viC\\, to a\·oid becoming obsolete for presenting experiences of contemporar} tullural behavior, muse~ must adapt to thc~e new circumstances and enter into an alliance with the Internet. \san example of the Internet-based nonlocalilv of must.•ums, Weibel introduces the lKM project FLICK KA, where the interactive virtual world comes together with the localized museum. As is widely known, almost all landmark technologie'> in histoT\ have been used by people to try and create artificial lite, androids, or at least simulations thereof; the history of the Golem or the previous century's many fantasies about robots provide a wealth of examples. With "cuteness" a further chapter i'> now being written in the Introduction 15 projection of attributes of the living onto machines and human interactions with them. Cuteness is a relatively new development in interactive systems. Focusing on the japanese cultme of Kawaii, which has had a large impact around the world, especially Jn entertainment, fashion, and animation, Adrian Cheok describes the concept and its history, and fllrther introduces mte engineering, the approach of a next generation of interactive systems. Tim Otto Roth nnd Andreas Deutsd1, referring to the 1940s concept of cellular automata by Stanislaw Ulam and John von Neumann, question the notion that digital images really do constitute a pictorial novelty. Driven by simple rules, cell-; in a grid undergo self-organized dynamic growth without a central directing instance, simply by interacting with their neighbor cells. Cellular automata are cybernetic pictures that constitute a mathematica l picture model wilh no pretlecessors in human cultures, which is open for media theory and new artistic concepts. The need for improvement in the dramaturgy of museum websites is highlighted by Harald Kraemer. By classifying 11)'/)('mledia applications and analyzing several case studies, he argues that in to simplify the complexity of the information the recipient should be integrated through a feeling of solidarity, by empathy, which can be ad1ieved through a holistic attempt at the symbiosis of content, navigation, and design. In this way information design would be created U1at is at the same time complex yet still intuitive. Ill New Tools for Us: Strategies for Image Analysis The book's fina l ~eclion tlemonstrates that image science and digital humanities cannot progress without new technologies of image collection management, new forms of distribution within a global science community, and new forms of analysis. The development of the field is supported in an increasingly enduring manner by new scientific instruments. Discussing examples from a variety of projects, this section demonstrates the strategic importance of collective projects, especially in their growl ng importance for the humanities. Although nowadays interactive visualizations nre essential for progress in dozens of scientific fields, humanities research and cultural institutions rarely use them for either study or presentation of cultural artifacts. Lev Manovicll and jeremy Douglass describe the methodology they have developed to quantify, measure, and visualize patterns in visual and media cultura l data sets. On the basis of case studies they show how cultural analytics can be used, for example, to visualize cultural epoch changes or patterns of user interaction with digital media a rtifacts. The heuristic use of computing for research on v isual media brings new challenges for analyzing images. Digital humanities offer unique new possibilities for arch iving Oliver Grau and Thomas Veigl 16 and analyzing, simultaneously connected with new questions. How do these media affect scientific re!>earch, and whnt do our disciplines have to contribute to our knowledge of computing? Martin Warnke introduces llyperlmaJe, a Web-based digital medium for imageoriented research, which meets the long-wished-lor requirement of not !renting visual forms in a semiotic way. The user may mark, arrange, utilize, and publish observations on images to discover pictorial similarities prior to any verbal categoriza tion. In this way flyperlmage implements a digital version of the Warburg Image Atlas with a l.uhmann-filing box in its background. The nonverbal methodology of pointing instead of naming is eminently suitable for expressing pictorial similarities without falling into verbal categorization, thus t<1king lhe evolulion<1ry aspect of images seriously. Although digital art became "the art of our time," Oliver Grau claim\ that it still has not "arrived" in the core cultural institutions of our societies. Meanwhile, we even witness a total loss of digital art, including its documentation, and with that the era~uc of a \ignificant portion of the cultural memory of our recent history. lo overcome the typic<ll placement of media arts in an academic ghetto, Grau proposes to learn from other fields to develop a strategy to solve the problems of media art and it\ research, to answer the challenges image science is facing today in the framework of the digital humanities. just as research in the natural sciences has long recognized team efforts, a simi lar emphasis on collaboralive research sh ould make its way into the thinking of the humanities. Only when digital art gains entrance to our science and culture systems and is collected systematically will its entire technological and intercultural potential be able to enrich our culture. rhe iconic turn is definitely capable oll1olding its own in the face of the overpowering fixation on language and text-by conferring on the Image its own cognitive capability. The image is not just some new theme; rather it concerns a different way of thinking. Images are much more than just objects of study; they are an important category of analysis. This entails thinking with images: images as an independent mean!> of cognizance. Yet even here we sec that the iconic turn remains reliant on language. IV Coda With the acute eye of the historian of the visual, Martin Kemp critically highlights the main topiC\ of this volume. With his extensive historical knowledge Kemp unmasks connotations of the 11ew imrJS£', such as increasing democratization o r the new quality ol ubiquity, as being overvalued by an idea of progress that has shadowed us since the Renaissance. To better analyze novel imaging, Kemp reminds us to consider which aspects are new, and which aspects are inherited. 17 Introduction Notes 1. Acordin~ to tlw milil<H)' online resource "\Irate~:) PaSlc" (<htp:/w.~racg) page.com/ htmw/htintel/20070102.a\px>): "Google Earth ha\ fl'\'Olutionized military intelligen<:c, hut the militaf)' doesn't Ilk«.' to ntlmit it. ... Just enter certain wortlinatcs and 'Fly to' ... I he Pentagon: 38.87, -77.506 ... lhc North Korean nucle<~r lc\t \ltc; 4 1 279, 129.087 . . . Ru\Sian \Uih in Kamtschatka; 52 5"' N 158 29' 25 E." Or go directly lo a very different site-our 11cparlmcnt for Image Science In Coocllwcig (see figure 1.71. 2. Sec <http://www.<Ht'>·humanities.net/event/high thmughput_humanities cccs20 10>. 3. See <http://www.nct\li20 I O.net>. 4. See <htp:/manw)'C\.lorksibc•~> 5. See variom umtrihuliom in the /emma/ of \'1\ rm/1 itt·wr;· of the International V1\ual Literacy Association: <.ht tp://www.ohicl.edu/visualliterat.)'>. 6. The Second International< onference on lmagl' 'i<:lcncc, (,oettweig/Amtria, whkh took place in autumn 2008, rewltcd out of a call for paer~ of different disciplines. with applicant\ from 19 cou nlrie' ••nd a v;1rlcly 7. W. j. I. 1\.litchcll. /lildtllmrit• (i·rankfurl: 'luhrkamp, 20081. Contributors Marie-Luise Angerer is Professor of Media t~nd Cullural Studies and Gender Studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Since 2007 she has been Head of the Academy. Her publications include: "Yom Phantasma des Leben-;," in I >er £insotz des l.ebens: Gescll/ecllt, ed. Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, Christoph Lebennvissm, Media/~rung, Hol7hey und Anja Michaelsen (Berlin: b_boo"s, 2009), 145-160; Gender goes Lifi•: Die Lebenswissenschnften a/.~ Hermt~{odlg flir die Gender Sttttlie\ (co-eds) (13ielefeld: transcript, 2008); and Vmn Be_'{elm•n nncll clem Affi•kt (ZOrich, Berlin: diaphanes, 2007). Olaf Breidbach is Chair for the History of Sciences and Head of the Institute lor the History of Medicine, Science and Technolog} and the museum "Ernst-1 laeckel-1 laus" of the Friedrich Schiller University, jena. His publications include Die ,\fnterinlisimmg des lclt5 (Frankfurt: Su l1rkamp, l997); Das AII\Citauliclle nder ii/Jer die Ansdwttung von Welt (Vienna: Springer, 2000); ed., Natunvhwnsclwften 11111 1800 (Weimar: Bohlau, 200 l); Deuttmgen (Weilerswist: Yellbruck, 200 I); Rildet cles IVi.\WIIS (Munich: Fink, 2005); with r. Bach, eel., Naturpllilusopltie nctdt Sdtefling (Stuttgart-Bad: Cannstatt, 2005); with G. F. Frigo, ed., Sde11za e filu.~a nel pusitil'i.\mo ita/imw e tedeuo (II Poligrafo casa cdilrice sri. Padova, 2005); Goetlws Mettlmorplwwllleltre (Munich: Fink, 2006); Visiom o( Nature: Tlte Art a11rl Scie11re u{ Ermt llcteckel (Munich: Prestel, 2008): Neue \Viue11sordllullsm (frankfurt: Suhrkamp); editor of Tlteory• ill Bioscme~ and )'earbook {or Europen11 Culture of Scic>nce. Adrian David Cheok is Director of the Mixed Realit}' Lab, National University of Singapore. lie is currently an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore where he leads a team of over twenty resach~ and students. lie has been a keynote and invited speaker at numerous international and local conferences and events. He is invited to exhibit for two years In the 1\rs Electronica Museum of the Future, launching in the Ar' Llectronica Festival 2003 His works "Human Pacman" and "Magic Land" were selected as one of the worltl\ lop inventions by \Vired and invited to be exhibited In Wired NextFest 2005. He was invited to show the works "Human Pacman" and "Magic Land" at Wired 'lextFcst 2005. lie was IEEE Singapore 400 Contributors Section Chairman 2003, and is currently ACM SlGCH r Chapter President. He was awarded the Hitachi Fellowship 2003, the A-STAR Young Scientist of the Year Award 2003, and the SCS Singapore Young Professional of the Year Award 2004. In 2004 he was invited to be the Singapore representative of the United Nations body lFiP SG 16 on Entertainment Computing and the founding and present Chairman of the Singapore Computer Society Special Interest Group on Entertainment Computing. Also in 2004, he was awarded an Associate of the Arts award by the Min ister for information, Communications and the Art~. Singapore. Wendy Hui Kyong Chun is Associate Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She has studied both Systems Design Engineering and English Literature, which she combines and mutate!> in her current work on digital media. She is author of Control and Freedom: Power nnd Pam11oia ill tile Age o( Fiber Optics (MIT Press, 2006), and coeditor (with Thomas Keenan) of New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader (Routledge, 2005). She is currently finishing a monograph entitled Progmmmed \lisio11s: Sofhvare, DNA, Race (MIT Press, 2011). Sean Cubitt is Professor of Global Media and Communications at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, Professorial FeUow in Media andCommunications at the University of Melbourne, and Honorary Professor of the University of Dundee. His publications include Timeshif1: On \lirfrn Culture (Comedia/Routledge, 1991); Videograpily: Video Medin as Art a/1(/ Culture (Macmi llan/St. Martins Press, 1993); Digital Aesthetics (Theory, Culture and Society/Sage, 1998); Simulation and Social Theory (Theory, Culture and Societ y/Sage, 2001); Tile Ci11ema E((ect (MlT Press, 2004); and Eco1'vfedia (Rodopi, 2005). He wa~ the coeditor of Aliens R Us: Postcolollinl Science Fictio11 with Ziauddin Sardar (Pluto Press, 2002) and Tile Tflirtl Text Reader with Rasheed Araeen and Ziauclclin Sardar (Athlone/Continuum, 2002) and How to Study the Event Film: Tile Lord of the RiiiXS (Manchester University Press, 2008). He is an editor of Cultural Polilics and serves on the editorial boards of a dozen journals including Screen, Third Text, Visual Cunllllllllimliun, Futures, and the l11temational joumnl of Cullum/ Studies. He is the series editor for Leonardo Books at MIT Press. His current research is on public ~crens and the transformation of public space, and on genealogies of digital light technologies. Andreas Deutsch is Head of the Department of innovative Methods of Computing at the Centre for Information Services and High Performance Computing, Technische Universitat Dresden. The research efforts of his lively research group are directed toward theoretical biology with an emphasis on modeling key problems of developmental biology and cancer growth. He is author of a monograph on cell ular automaton modeling of biological pattern formation (Blrkhauser, 2004). Jeremy Douglass is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Software Studies at the Un iversity of California San Diego, in affiliation with Calit2, the Center for Research in Computing Contributors 401 and the Arts, and Visual Arts. He researches critica l approaches to software ancl code using the analytic frameworks of the humanities and social sciences. james Elkins is E. C. Chadbourne Professor in the Department of Art llistory, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He writes on art and non-art images; his recent books include On tlte Stmnge Plnce of /~eigm1 in Contemporary Art, Visual Studie!>: A Skeplicnl /n lroduclion, What Happened lo Arl Criticism? and Master Nnrmtive~ mul Their Discontents. lie edited two book series for Routledge: T11e Art Seminar (con versa lions on different subjects in art theory) and Theories o( Modem ism nnd Postmodernism in t17e \fisunl Arts (short monographs on the shape of the twentieth century); currently he is organizing a seven-year series called the Stone Summer Theory lnstHute (stonesum mertheoryi nsti tu te.org). Oliver Grau is Professor of Image Scien ce and Head of the Department for Image Science at the Danube University Krems. Recent publications include Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion (M II Press, 2003); Mediate Emolionen (Fischer, 2005); and MedinArtHistories (M IT Press, 2007). He has been on international invited lecture tours, and has been presented numerous awards. His work has been Lranslated into twelve languages. His main research is in the history of media art, immersion (virtual realily), and emotions, as well as the history, ideas, and culture of tclepresence and a rtHicial life. I lis awards include, among others: Elected into the Young Academy of the Berlin13randenburgische Scientific Academy and the Leopoldina; Media Award of the I lumboldt University; lnterNations/Gocthe Institute; Uook of the Month, Scienlific American. Stefan Heidenreich is working as writer and journalist (tnz, F.A.Z., cle:bug), art critic (EA.Z., Monopol), Web consultant (Mctaversum, Designmai, lconicturn), photographer (s.cr&sh.de), and Assistant Professor (llumboldt-Universitat Berlin). He studied philosophy, science of communication, German philology, and temporari ly economy and physics at Bochum and Berlin . He published "Fiiptlop: Digita le Datenstrorne und die Kullur des 21. jahrhunderts" (2004) and "Was verspricht die Kunst?" (1998). Eduardo Kac is internationally recognized for his telepresence and bio a rt. A pioneer of telecommunications art in the pre-Web 1880s, Eduardo Kac (pronounced "Katz") emerged in the earl y 1990s with his rad ical works combining telerobotics and living organisms. His visionary integration o f robotics, biology, and networking explores the fluidity of subject positions in the postdigital world . His work deals with issuesthat range from the mythopoetics of online experience (Uimpum) to the cultural impact of biotechnology (Ge11esis); from the changing cond ition of memory in the digital age (Time Capsule) to distributed coll ective agency (Teleporti11g nn U11kiiOIVII State); from the problematic notion of the "exotic" (Uam Al'is) to the creation of li fe and evolution (GFP 8 111111}'). At the dawn of the twenty-first century Kac opened a new d irection for 402 Contributors contemporary art with his "transgenic art"-first with a groundbreaking piece entitled Genesis (1999), which included an "artist's gene" he invented, and then with GFP Bunny, his fluorescent rabbit named Alba (2000). Martin Ke mp has written, broadcast, and curated exhibition s on imagery in art and science from the Renaissance to the presen t day. His books include Tile Scie11ce of Art: Optical Tllemes ill ltVestem Art from Bnmellesclli lo Seuml (Yale University Press) and The Human Animal in Westem Art ami Scie11ce (Chicago University Press, 2007). He has published extensively on Leonardo da Vinci, including the prize-winning LeOIIMifo da Vinci: Tile lvlnn,elous Works o(Nnture a11d lvlan (1989, 2006). Increasingly, he has focused on issues of visua lization, modeling, and representation. He writes a regular column Nature (published as \ f isur~lza'on, Oxford University Press, 2000, and developed as Seen and Unseen, Oxford University Press, 2006, in which his concept of "structura l intuitions" is explored). Ha rald Krae me r is a producer, designer and d irector of on line and off-line hypermedia applications. His work includes Vienna Walk Demo ( 1998) with Science Wonder Productions; Docwllenlnliou cmd Al/etlwdology of Colllempomry Art ( 1999-2001) for the German Research Foundation (DFG) at the University of Cologne; and Artcnmpus (2005-2007) for the University of Berne. With his own company Transfusionen he has realized: Arl mul lndustq {2000), Virltlnl Tmns(er lvfusee Suisse (2002-2003), Museum Schloss Ky!Jurs (2004), nncl Elisabeth o(TI111ringia (2006). He has written and published widely on the subject of hypermedia, museum informatics, and d igital collections, as well as contemporary arl. After teaching art history and new media at the universities in Berne, Cologne, Constance, Luneburg and Zurich, he is recently Docent at the Department for Design at Zurich Academy of Arts and at the Department for [mage Sciences at Danube Un iversity Krems. Currently he is working on documentation about Knowledge F-lyper/1/edia Design & Museum. Lev Manovich is a Professor in Visua l Arts Department, University of California-San Diego, Director of the Software Studies Initiative a t California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), and Visiting Research Professor at Goldsmith College (Un iversity of London), De Montfort University (UK) and College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales (Sydney). His books include Software Takes Cmmlwlui (released under CC license, 2008), Soft Cine111a: Navigatins tl1e Database (MIT Press, 2005), and Tl1e Language u(New Media (MIT Press, 2001), which is hailed as "the most suggestive and broad ranging media history since Marshall McLuhan." He has written 100 articles that have been reprinted over 300 times in 30+ countries. Manovich is much in demand to lecture around the world, having delivered over 400 lectures, semi nars, and workshops during th e last ten years. Tim Otto Roth has held lecturesh ips in Madrid, Valencia, and Kassel. He is currently working on a doctora l thesis at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. His research Con tributors 403 focuses a phenomenology of shadow pictures and a redefinition of the poslphotographic image. Roth is known for his large art and science projects in public space, including work with scien tists of top research institutions especially in biology, astrophysics, and particle physics (www.imachination.net and www.pixelsex.org). He has received numerous awards including the International Media Art Award/Centre for J\rt and Media ZKM Karlsruhe. Martin Schulz is Professor at Hochschu le fUr Gestallung in the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe Staatliche Hochschu le fur Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, and coordinator for the Ph.D. program " Image, Body, and Medium: An Anthropological Approach." Tle has published numerous texts concerning contemporary art and picture theory, including (with I fan s Belting), Que/ Corps? Eine Fmge der Repriisentalirm (Munich, 2002), Ord111mgen der Biltler (Munich, 2005); with Birgit Mersmann), Kultllrt!ll des Bildes (Munich, 2006); "Die Sichtbarkeit des Todes im Medium der Fotografie," in Die llc'lle Sidllbarkeit des Tories, ed. Thomas Macho and Kristin Marek (Munich, 2007), 289-313; and "The lmmersive Image of Landscape: Space Voyages and Time Travel," in TJmt ~ Wllnt a Cllameleon Looks Like: Contesting /mmersiw Cultures, ed. Kiwi lvlenrath and Alexander Schwinghammer (Cologne, 2009). Christa Sommerer a nd Laurent Migno nneau are internationally renowned media artists and researchers. They have jointly created around 20 interactive artworks, which can be found at <http://www.interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent>. These artworks have been shown in around 200 exll ibitiom worldwide and installed in media museums and media collections around the world, including the Van Gogh Museum i11 Amsterdam, the Museum of Science and Industries in Tokyo, the Media Museum of the ZKM in Karlsruhe, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, the NTT-ICC Museum in Tokyo, the NTT Plan-Net in Nagoya, japan, the Shiraishi Multimedia Art Center in Shiraishi, Jnpan, the HOUSE-OF-SHtSElDO in Tokyo and the fTAU CULTURAL Foundation in Sao Paulo. They have won mayor international media awards, among others the "Golden Nica" Prix Ars Electronica Award for Interactive Art 1994 (Linz, Austria). Mignonneau and Sommerer have published on artificial life, complexity, interactivity and interface design, and they have lectured extensively at un iversities, internationa l conferences, and symposia. They are currently heading the department for Interface Cultures at the University of Art and Design in Linz ,Austria, which specializes in interactive art, interactive media, and interface design. They have published two books: Tile Art am/ Scie11ce o( l11ter(ace am/ Interaction Design, ed. C. Sommerer, L. C. Jain, and L. Mignonneau (Springer Verlag, 2008); ancl lnter{l1ce CultureS-Aitistic Aspects o{lnlemclion, ed. C. Sommerer, L. Mignonneau, D. King (Transcript Verlag, 2008). David Steinman has spent more th<lll a decade working to integrate the fields of computer modeling and medical imaging. He is a Professor of Mechanical and 404 Contributors Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he heads the Biomedical Simulation Laboratory. Dr. Steinman holds a Career Investigator award from the Heart & Stroke Foundation. Do lo res Stein man trained as a pediatrician, before finishing doctoral and postdoctoral research in cancer cell biology. An accomplished photographer, she is interested in the relationship and connection between the humanities and science. Dr. Steinman is currently a Guest Researcher at the University of Toronto. Tho mas Veig l studied and worked at the Institute for Cultural- and Social Anthropology al the University of Vienna. With a main focus on the origination of media technologies and their dependency and influence on social evolution, he wrote his thesis about a cross cultural comparison on the evolution of letterpress printing with movable metal type in East Asia and Europe. Since 2008 he is part of the scientific stuff of the Department for Image Science at the Danube-University Krems, where he was responsible for the organization of the second international conference on image science "Gazing into the 21st Centmy." Current ly he is preparing for his doctoral thesis. Martin Warnke mitiated the Department of Computers and Culture, where he developed a curriculum that combines cultural, artistic, and computer science is~uc theoretically and practically. Since 1983 he has taught contiously in Luneburg, Basel, and Klagenfurt. His interdisciplinary methodology is illustrated best by the protection and archiving of the artist ic estate of the late Anna Oppermann. This methodology consists of hypermedia, interactive systems, image processing, and media technology. lie has completed a number of research projects; Hyperlmage, funded by the german BMBF (Ministery for Education and Resaerch), is being completed right now. During one of his projects the XMl standard PeTAL (Picture Text Annotation Language) was developed, which is now entering the scientific community. A project recently funded by the DFG (German Research Association) carries on this research. Together with collegues from Luneburg, Berlin and Basel he has established annual "llyperKult" Workshops and the discourse that evolved with it. Since April 2009 he has been the Chairperson of the Kunstverein Springhornhof (an art club in Ncuenkirchcn). Pete r We ibe l wa~ appointed Professor for Visual Media Art at the Hochschule fur Angewandte Kunst in Vienna in 1984, and from 1984 to 1989 was Associate Professor lor Video and Digital Arts, Center for Media Study at the State University at Buffalo, New York. In 1989 he founded the Institute of New Media at the SUidelschule in Frankfurt on the Mam. Between 1986 and 1995 he was in charge of the Ars Elcctronica in Linz as artistic consultant and later artistic director. From 1993 to 1998 he was curator at the New Galerie Graz. Since 1999 he has been Chairman and CFO of the ZKM/Center for Art and ~ f edia in Karlsruhe.