Humanities and Social Sciences Colloquium - Jens-Arne Dickmann

Image-Artefact Relations

Images are artifacts. As products of mind and bodily action images materialize and visualize social as well as mental constructs of culture. They constitute media of sight and performance. Both acts – seeing and performing – depend on the artifacts’ perception. This perception becomes most vital in the visual as well as tangible surfaces that constitute the interface in the relationship between human and artefact. In this vein, the analysis of the surface as the interface between materiality, visuality and performativity opens new perspectives on images.

Since material cultures are as diverse as human societies, the archaeological disciplines are prototypical in the study of visual material culture. These disciplines offer intrinsic transcultural approaches and numerous methodologies. Thus, the Institute of Archaeological Research at the University of Freiburg is the roofing bond of six archaeological disciplines and one philology. Strengthening our expertise as scholars of visual and material culture, we have come to understand image-artefacts as inseparable entities. By doing so, the most different interfaces – often avoided in terms of material culture studies - come into our focus: these interfaces entangle image, surface and its subjacent materiality as well as its surrounding material space. This holistic approach of the project SurFace was initiated to bridge the centrifugal tendencies of each discipline and create new convergences on image-artefact relations.