Project Details
Projekt
Constellations of fragments: Periodical and Serialised Photography (1845-1910)
Applicant
Professor Dr. Jens Ruchatz
Subject Area
Theatre and Media Studies
Term
from 2016 to 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 262766954
In reference to text-bound forms of journal literature, photography forms an important point of contrast. Photographs, like journal literature, have been serially and periodically published from the outset, yet according to an opposite logic. Furthermore, photography functions as a paratextual partner (one that is both inter-medial and inter-textual), forming simultaneous constellations with written texts. Photography will be contrasted with linguistic texts, insofar as photographic images - unlike texts in written media (and also unlike traditional images) - constitute fragments or clippings extracted from the space-time continuum. The sub-project aims to characterise the journal format as a particular form of de-fragmentation by way of contextual links. On the one hand, this takes place in an 'intramedial' manner, when photographic images are sequentially or simultaneously serialised so as to create constellations of photographic images. On the other hand, it takes place in an intermedial manner, when text, typography, and various forms of pictorial media are brought into relation with one another so as to establish a plurality of possible meanings. The project thus proceeds in two directions: on the one hand it aims to elaborate the possibilities of contextual linkage offered by the journal format to photographic images; on the other, it seeks to show how illustrated journals were transformed by the rise of new, technically mediated images.Through formal and semantic analysis, typical journal-specific constellations of photographic images will be distinguished and compared on the basis of their history, genre, and country of origin (either Germany, France, or Great Britain). This will involve a distinction between two stages of technological development. Firstly, the project will examine photo series produced between 1845 and 1880, which were often marketed as serialised works for subscribers and which oscillate between book and journal form (e.g. Talbot's The Pencil of Nature). Travel and portrait photography in particular was often published in serial form and accompanied by captions. With the introduction of halftone printing between 1880 and 1910 - a process which allowed text and photographic images to be printed together - photography became the standard form of journal illustration. In regard to both of these stages, the sub-project will be concerned to elaborate the characteristic strategies used to give meaning to photographes, both sequentially, from one periodical issue to another (e.g. through typical headings), or simultaneously, on double-page spreads (e.g. photo montages and mosaics). The aim of the analysis is to ascertain whether photography's fragmentary character is brought to an end or reduced in the context of periodicals, and the extent to which photography is used to contaminate its context, to close or open texts.
DFG Programme
Research Units
