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'Machinery Rooms' of the Mediterranean, 1800-present: Images and Visual Archives of Movement and Acceleration

Description du projet

Les «salles des machines» de la Méditerranée après 1800: une histoire visuelle

Le projet MEDMACH, financé par le CER, porte sur la Méditerranée après 1800, en s’intéressant aux infrastructures et aux machineries d’accélération: aéroports, gares, ponts autoroutiers, ports industriels, navires à moteur. L’historiographie néglige souvent ces sites. La Méditerranée d’après 1800 est typiquement présentée soit en déclin, soit sous un jour romantique. La «salle des machines» de la modernité n’a jamais été au centre de l’attention. Ces sites de mouvement sont associés à des processus de migration, de colonisation et de décolonisation, ainsi qu’à des crises environnementales et économiques. MEDMACH exploitera le potentiel des images et des archives d’images pour faire progresser les connaissances sur les voyages, les transits, les migrations, l’environnement et les rencontres culturelles afin d’appréhender les histoires relatives à la Méditerranée dans une dimension globale et postcoloniale.

Objectif

The aim of MEDMACH is to write a new history of the Mediterranean after 1800 through images of movement: infrastructures and machineries of acceleration such as airports, train stations, motorway bridges, industrial ports, and engine-driven ships. These sites are often overlooked in overarching narratives of the region. The Mediterranean after 1800 typically appears either in decline or romanticized, therefore this ‘machinery room’ of modernity has never been at the center of attention.

However, these sites of movement are connected to all the aspects which make the Mediterranean an emotive, politically relevant place today: migration, colonization and decolonization, the relation between Europe and the Islamic world, environmental and economic crisis. Conceptualizing the modern and contemporary Mediterranean through its ‘machinery rooms’ of movement will slice through the divisions of fragmented national histories, and provide a basis for the differentiated, yet connective history that is needed to face those challenges.

This history will be based on images and image archives: In the modern period after 1800, images are increasingly made for distribution and circulation. They are entangled with the ambivalent modern notions of movement and acceleration. They are also ideal carriers of transnational and transregional knowledge. MEDMACH will advance epistemic knowledge about the modern and contemporary Mediterranean. Moreover, it will work with a visual approach to establish a new, systemic historical understanding which is urgently needed in current debates on travel, transit, migration, environment, and cultural encounter.

Key words: Mediterranean, visual archives, infrastructure, mobility, acceleration, migration, modernity, circulation

Régime de financement

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

Institution d’accueil

HEINRICH-HEINE-UNIVERSITAET DUESSELDORF
Contribution nette de l'UE
€ 2 000 000,00
Adresse
UNIVERSITAETSSTRASSE 1
40225 Dusseldorf
Allemagne

Voir sur la carte

Région
Nordrhein-Westfalen Düsseldorf Düsseldorf, Kreisfreie Stadt
Type d’activité
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Liens
Coût total
€ 2 000 000,00

Bénéficiaires (1)