The Structures of Visual Exchanges

In the history of representation, the illustrated press has functioned as a significant driving force, curating, and disseminating ideas of visuality to artists and a wider audience. However, how can we even grasp the interaction and circulation of the visual at scale? How is it possible to analyse and comprehend image globalization? To address these questions, the Visual Contagions project has developed (i) a large corpus of digitized image data and (ii) methodologies to analyse image exchanges across the globe. Thanks to this groundwork, the project has conducted several large-scale analyses of visual transmissions. However, this computational study intertwines algorithms, information and data with a historical and conceptual complexity that makes computational investigations difficult to frame. Each of these analyses, in fact, lays its foundation on an ontological decision about the nature of circulation: what does circulation entail? How can we express it? What actual insights can we gain from it? The answers to these questions are fundamental to the creation, and function, of information systems able to support the historical analysis of cultural exchanges. The article explores the technological limitations and possibilities in conceptualizing, curating, and integrating historical data faced by the Visual Contagions project, focusing specifically on the documentation and analysis of visual exchanges.

Nicola Carboni is a Postdoctoral research within the Visual Contagions project and Lecturer at the University of Geneva, where he teaches Digital Image, Data Curation, and Knowledge Graph. Previously Fellow at the Swiss Art Research Infrastructure – University of Zurich, Digital Humanities Fellow at Villa I Tatti and Marie Curie Fellow at CNRS MAP. He works on the intersection between knowledge graphs, big visual data and cultural interpretation.