Project description
A closer look at visual power
Capable of persuasion and immersion, images play a pivotal role in shaping perceptions. However, their power can often overshadow their inherent instability, ambiguity and self-reflexivity. With this in mind, the ERC-funded FRAGILE IMAGES project seeks to explore the delicate nature of images, particularly Roman imagery from the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD. The project offers a fresh perspective on visual culture and image theory, aiming to understand how ‘fragile’ images reshape our understanding of these fields. Specifically, it will study the fragility of images across temporal, semantic and ontological dimensions. FRAGILE IMAGES aspires to provide insights into Roman visual culture, highlighting its sophistication and challenging the traditional view of power and weakness.
Objective
FRAGILE IMAGES fundamentally challenges the dominant notion of images as powerful actors. It moves away from the focus on the affective, persuasive, performative, and immersive image and instead focuses on its fragility, instability, ambiguity, and self-reflexivity. This radically new approach brings together a Visual Studies perspective and a cultural-historical approach and applies them to Roman imagery from the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD. It has three main objectives:
1) A systematic study of pictorial fragility
The manifold phenomena of pictorial fragility are divided into three analytical dimensions: temporal fragility, which deals with the material, contextual, and conceptual mutability of images; semantic fragility, which deals with their ambiguity; and ontological fragility, which addresses their self-reflexivity. The case studies aim at elaborating the semantic, aesthetic, but also social potentials of such ‘fragile’ images.
2) A new perspective on Roman visual culture
By means of a comparative approach, the project explores the extent to which manipulated, ambiguous, and self-reflexive images differ in their spatial contexts and in their socio-cultural forms of use. This focus invites a new way of looking at Roman art: The temporality, ambiguity, and self-reflexivity of Roman images are constitutive elements of an innovative, sophisticated, intelligent, and even intellectual visual culture. This perspective moves away from the old view of Roman art as a mere derivative of Greek pictorial concepts.
3) A reformulation of image theory in the light of ‘fragile’ images
This project will not only challenge the common notion of the power of images, but also transcend the dichotomy of power and weakness. ‘Fragility’ is not considered as an image deficit, but as a pictorial quality to be analysed in terms of its specific potential. The focus on pictorial fragility will result in renegotiating the ‘activity’ of image and viewer.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-ADG
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24118 Kiel
Germany
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