Visual objects like photographs or images are part of our everyday life, be it by producing, seeing or collecting them. They shape our memories, the way we perceive and acknowledge the world and how we communicate with others. The increasing circulation of visual objects via media and new technologies defines thereby a wide area for anthropological studies on visual cultures. Main interest was thereby how cultural meaning of visual objects is produced and how the meaning changes according to different localities and social groups?
The aims for this class were two-folded: First, we focused on visualities in everyday life and elaborated on ways how Anthropologists investigate visual objects under a transcultural perspective. With a closer look on different case studies like family photography or photo studios, the circulation of images on Facebook and blogs or visual documentations of popular events or contemporary art practices, theoretical and methodological approaches in Anthropology were discussed. Second, the focus was on practices in Visual Anthropology and a research based format.
Students learnt to engage with databases and to create visual essays with reference to ethnographic methods. For their research, students were provided with various visual tools and platforms (e.g. the digital image annotation tool, HyperImage (HRA). Supervised by tutors, students got introduced to the technical elements in HyperImage (image annotation) to conceptualize and work on their projects and to combine writing and visual data in their argument.
This seminar was part of the University program ‘Willkommen in der Wissenschaft / Welcome at science’. Students were asked to actively partake in the improvement and establishment of the ‘HyperImage’ (image annotation) tool as part of their own research projects. Aim is the permanent implementation of HyperImage for research based teaching seminars in the Master Program.
Cathrine Bublatzky 