Situation Space. How Spatial Images Define the User’s Disposition
International conference, January 12th and 13th 2017
Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung
Sophienstrasse 22a, 10178 Berlin,
Central Laboratory (2nd courtyard, 2nd floor)
www.situation-space-conference.org
Contemporary imaging, sensor and display technologies have turned viewing
predominantly into using. Interacting with visual devices and interfaces such
as virtual reality headsets, augmented reality apps or navigation systems
situate users in space both within and beyond the boundaries of the screen, for
instance when playing Pokémon Go on a smartphone, or when superimposing
medical images on a patient’s body. Narrative media such as stereoscopic
movies, volumetric cameras or curved displays also require a visual practice
that spatially aligns image and viewer. In the case of a stereoscopic
projection, for example, the spatial impression of the image is most
intelligible and convincing if the physical position of the viewer corresponds
with the camera-viewpoint.
Critically thinking about producing and perceiving images thus requires the
analysis of image dispositions. Understanding the spatiality of images requires
a consideration of situation space, that – just as the situation room – implies
and defines the need for action. With regard to spatial images we thus ask, how
do screens situate the viewer in physical space and within the visualised
space? Are these spaces connected by means of interface and interaction design,
content creation or narrative strategies? Does the ability of the viewer to
physically and visually navigate through the image increase or decrease, if the
images can be characterized as spatial? And following that, how and where is
agency ascribed to the viewing of images? Do forms of spatially related visual
practice prompt the viewer to connect action and perception? And does this
require a re-conceptualisation of the dichotomy of viewer and user? In short:
how does the image (understood as the alliance of screen and visualisation)
conceptualise and define the user’s spatial disposition?
The analysis of the visual construction and representation of space, as well as
the associated iterative interplay of structures and processes in front and
behind the screen has been a concern of aesthetics, art history, image- and
film-theory, media studies, visual studies and science and technology studies.
But traditional views on the spatiality of the image are challenged by
contemporary imaging technology, which proposes new forms of visual practice.
New approaches concentrating on specific aspects, such as the mobility
(Verhoeff 2012), and archaeology (Huhtamo 2012), social, narrative, and
architectural structures (Elsaesser 1998), or the three-dimensionality
(Schröter 2014) of screens and visualisations, reflect the turn towards the
particular role of the image in situating action and perception.
The workshop aims to apply theoretical and practical approaches in a discussion
of the operative and narrative implications of visual practices as spatial
dispositions. In order to analyse how images define and situate viewers’ action
and perception, the workshop focuses on visual practices such as mobile
displays, mixed reality games, screen architectures and stereoscopic media.
References
Huhtamo, Erkki (2012) “Screen Tests: Why Do We Need an Archaeology of the
Screen?”, Cinema Journal, Vol. 51, No. 2, 144-148.
Verhoeff, Nanna (2012) Mobile Screens: The Visual Regime of Navigation.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Schröter, Jens (2014) 3D. History, Theory and Aesthetics of the Transplane
Image. New York, Bloomsbury.
Elsaesser, Thomas (1998) Digital Cinema: Delivery, Event, Time, in: Elsaesser,
Thomas; Hoffmann, Kay: Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable? The Screen Arts in
the Digital Age, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 201-222.
Conference chairs
Luisa Feiersinger, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Das Technische Bild,
BildFilmRaum
Kathrin Friedrich, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Cluster of Excellence Image
Knowledge Gestaltung. Interdisciplinary Laboratory
Moritz Queisner, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Cluster of Excellence Image
Knowledge Gestaltung. Interdisciplinary Laboratory
Organisation: Henrik Utermöhle, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Cluster of
Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung. Interdisciplinary Laboratory, Das
Technische Bild
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