Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MEDMACH ('Machinery Rooms' of the Mediterranean, 1800-present: Images and Visual Archives of Movement and Acceleration)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-04-01 al 2025-09-30
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 is 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.
The project defines three main lines of research: the first line maps the range of visual archives relevant for histories of the Mediterranean after 1800. The second one is dedicated to images, visual practices and their relation to the concepts of speed and acceleration, and the third one analyzes the ‘machinery room’ as heritage.
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 is 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.
The project defines three main lines of research: the first line maps the range of visual archives relevant for histories of the Mediterranean after 1800. The second one is dedicated to images, visual practices and their relation to the concepts of speed and acceleration, and the third one analyzes the ‘machinery room’ as heritage.
During the first two years of the project, MEDMACH members have made significant progress towards the main objectives, identifying significant case studies which intersect the three research lines. Work has focused on the exploration and contextualization of archive material related to the Mediterranean and its global connections, with a particular emphasis on visual material. Field trips have lead to Trieste, Marseille, Venice, Mumbai, Athens, Harvard, and Vienna among other places. Furthermore, a network of collaborations was established, reaching beyond the initial collaborations outlined in the project proposal. The MEDMACH group has organized two collaborative workshops and one international conference.
The first workshop "The Red Corridor and the Wider Mediterranean: Histories of Global Commercial Desires and Image Making" explored the global axis which opens from the Mediterranean towards the Indian Ocean in a transhistorical perspective. It was organized by the PI and the external associated partners (Prof. Dr. Avinoam Shalem/Prof. Dr. Alina Payne, Project “The Black Mediterranean”) at Columbia Global Centers in Nairobi. The second workshop, "Aestheticizing Petroleum. An exploratory Workshop", co-organized by the PI of MEDMACH with Prof. Dr. Avinoam Shalem), was held at Columbia University New York. It opened up perspectives towards the field of visual environmental and energy histories and their connection to the Mediterranean as well as wider geographies, opening up a space to think about the Mediterranean not only as a geographical, but also a conceptual space.
The first international conference of MEDMACH was also organized during the first 24 months of funding and was held at the very beginning of the third project year at HHU Düsseldorf: "Looking into the Machinery Room: Images and Visual Archives of Movement and Acceleration across the Mediterranean".
The project has established an online platform hosted at hypotheses.org the blog platform for social sciences and humanities of the Max Weber Foundation.
Two group members have been invited to edit a special issue of the Journal Mobile Culture Studies: "Between Idea and Reality. Visual Imaginations of Mobility around the Mediterranean after 1800", which will explore visual sources that illustrate ideas and realities of diverse modes and processes of mobility around the Mediterranean after 1800. We will investigate how infrastructural projects – both imagined and realized – contribute to an understanding of the specific conditions of Mediterranean history in the globally connected modern and contemporary era. The journal issue, to be published open access in the fall of 2025 will include contributions from the main case studies of all MEDMACH members as well as invited contributions by other scholars.
Two short term fellows were invited to the group in 2024 and 2025 in order to broaden the international profile of the group and the range of case studies covered.
The first workshop "The Red Corridor and the Wider Mediterranean: Histories of Global Commercial Desires and Image Making" explored the global axis which opens from the Mediterranean towards the Indian Ocean in a transhistorical perspective. It was organized by the PI and the external associated partners (Prof. Dr. Avinoam Shalem/Prof. Dr. Alina Payne, Project “The Black Mediterranean”) at Columbia Global Centers in Nairobi. The second workshop, "Aestheticizing Petroleum. An exploratory Workshop", co-organized by the PI of MEDMACH with Prof. Dr. Avinoam Shalem), was held at Columbia University New York. It opened up perspectives towards the field of visual environmental and energy histories and their connection to the Mediterranean as well as wider geographies, opening up a space to think about the Mediterranean not only as a geographical, but also a conceptual space.
The first international conference of MEDMACH was also organized during the first 24 months of funding and was held at the very beginning of the third project year at HHU Düsseldorf: "Looking into the Machinery Room: Images and Visual Archives of Movement and Acceleration across the Mediterranean".
The project has established an online platform hosted at hypotheses.org the blog platform for social sciences and humanities of the Max Weber Foundation.
Two group members have been invited to edit a special issue of the Journal Mobile Culture Studies: "Between Idea and Reality. Visual Imaginations of Mobility around the Mediterranean after 1800", which will explore visual sources that illustrate ideas and realities of diverse modes and processes of mobility around the Mediterranean after 1800. We will investigate how infrastructural projects – both imagined and realized – contribute to an understanding of the specific conditions of Mediterranean history in the globally connected modern and contemporary era. The journal issue, to be published open access in the fall of 2025 will include contributions from the main case studies of all MEDMACH members as well as invited contributions by other scholars.
Two short term fellows were invited to the group in 2024 and 2025 in order to broaden the international profile of the group and the range of case studies covered.
Preliminary data collected during field trips has opened a set of research questions that arise when different historiographic approaches which so far have not often corresponded directly are intersected, such as industrial heritage history, art and cultural history and a (visually based) history of ideas around emotions, migration, and environment. A key question that needs further attention when dealing with visual sources in such potentially contested areas and on the intersections of different methodological and disciplinary standards concerns the ethics of the use, reproduction, circulation and commodification of images.