Research questions related to visual studies

With a view to the core task of visual studies, each module deals with one of five visual studies topics. The topics are chosen so that they can be dealt with in a particularly concise way using the material to be published in the respective project phase.

Image Meaning in a Spatial Context: Intercultural Networks and Coins as Image Vehicles (Module 1)

Conventional iconographic studies assume that images have a clear meaning. Particularly in the case of public ‘propaganda’ media, which would include coins, the focus would be on their message. Coins were understood as unidirectional media that would convey the communication intentions of the commissioner. The fact that at least some images could be intentionally polyvalent was ignored, as was the phenomenon that images could take on different meanings in different contexts. It is only recently that research has focussed on the polyvalence of images. This is where ImagNum comes in, in that it understands conventional research into image contexts as a ‘framing’ for the creation of pictorial meaning and analyses different geographical contexts in a comparative way.

Module 1 deals with how image meanings emerge in dependence on and in relation to specific spatial contexts. Particular attention is paid to the circulation of coin images - due to the mobility of coins, travelling die engravers and technology transfer. After several waves of colonisation and especially after the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Greek world spanned an enormous area. This raises the question of how the ‘mobile’ coinage not only gave rise to the dissemination of visual concepts, but also to what extent the same visual formulae were modified in their meaning by new – also socio-cultural – contextualisations and to what extent this found expression in the transformation of visual formulae.

Module 1 pursues the question of the mobility of coins and their images on the basis of coinage in ancient Asia Minor (Troas and Mysia) and in the Black Sea region. Both regions are characterised by Greek colonies that were in exchange with the non-Greek indigenous population and can be regarded as case studies for early glocalisation: Their cultural forms – and thus also their coinage – were inspired by supra-regional concepts but shaped by local interests.

Images and Actors: Coins as mediators between coin issuers and recipients (Module 2)

There has long been a consensus in research that coin images participate in the visualisation and formation of identities. For example, the study of Greek coinage in connection with the founding of colonies suggests that their emblems played an important role in affirming old and constructing new identities and social orders in a hybrid cultural landscape. The potential of coin imagery as a medium for the formulation and dissemination of ideas and ideologies, as well as memoria and identities, was recognised early on by the Greeks and used effectively, even if the visual concepts were supposedly ‘simpler’ than those of the Romans. However, many of these works use methods that are either highly descriptive but theoretically inadequately reflected, or theoretically astute but poorly grounded in terms of numismatic source base. ImagNum starts here and focusses on the – sometimes competing or diverging – communication intentions of various actors.

Coins are commissioned by certain actors (magistrates as representatives of a city, rulers of a region or a state), produced by craftsmen with specialised know-how and used and viewed by people from different areas. While the commissioners and mint masters become tangible through their appearance, the recipients can usually only be identified indirectly through the find contexts (graves, hoards) and presumed areas of circulation (local, regional, international). Instead of speaking in general terms of a medial construction of identity, the project aims to address which actors wanted to negotiate which content via coins – and to what extent it can be assumed that these visual constructions became effective. To this end, reception phenomena must also be considered: coins that were reworked, coin motifs that were received in other media, narratives that may also be reflected in written sources – or even coin experiments that found no ‘echo’.

Module 2 concentrates on the role of coin images as agents of social and political networks of relationships. The focus is on a comparison of different temporal and spatial constellations.

Materiality, Mediality and Seriality of Coins in Context: Image Schemata and Intercultural Negotiation (Module 3).

A large branch of visual studies research is concerned with the materiality and mediality, and more rarely the seriality, of images. Interest is focussed on the fact that the image carrier significantly conditions the appearance and reception of the image. Serial images - ‘multiples’ - have been thematised with a view to potential strategies of producing authenticity (as an imprint). When their materiality is discussed in the case of coins, it is usually in order to address coin denominations with regard to economic issues. The identification of series usually focusses on technical (rather than stylistic) aspects. ImagNum builds on this research in order to pose the question of the consequences of materiality (metal), mediality (small, round, two-sided form) and seriality for the aesthetics and semantics of the images.

ImagNum explores the consequences of materiality (metal composition), mediality (small, round form, two-sided relief) and seriality for the aesthetics and semantics of the images. The medial, material and serial effect is particularly striking in the case of an image transfer: When images from other genres, architectures or everyday objects are depicted on coins and transformed in the course of depiction in order to be suitable for the new medium. ImagNum is concerned with such phenomena of transmediality and transmateriality in order to specify the intrinsic nature of the image medium of the coin. It must be taken into account that different cultural contexts each developed their own strategies of medialisation. In addition, the role of coins in the naturalisation of iconographic identity narratives is explored through their materiality as circulating objects.

With North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia and Italy, those areas will be iconographically explored in which a multifaceted cultural exchange took place as a result of Phoenician and Greek colonisation as well as Roman expansion. It will serve as a testing ground for research into the aspects of adaptation and differentiation conveyed by the visual and textual messages of coins.

Image and Script: Iconotexts (Module 4)

Iconotexts, i.e. the analysis of text-image relationships on one and the same image carrier, represent a major field of research. Coins are a paradigmatic case of such dual media situations, but so far legends and images have either been studied separately – the existing lexica of Greek and non-Greek coin inscriptions are only available in analogue form and largely ignore the coin types – or legends have been read one-dimensionally as ‘explanations’ of the images. In ImagNum, these corpora of coin inscriptions will therefore be digitised and integrated into the ThING with persistent identifiers. This will make it possible to focus specifically on the interaction of text and image, on congruencies and on complementary strategies for generating meaning.

ImagNum examines coins as a paradigmatic case of the interaction of text and image - from a double perspective: the text as paratext of the image, the image as paratext of the text. For both elements, the focus is on the visual arrangement that first and foremost co-constitutes meaning, as well as on the modes of generating meaning. Specifically, it is about how textual and visual meanings complement each other in their interplay, refer to each other, possibly also compete or contradict each other. Methodologically, therefore, those coins are also of interest that entirely lack an inscription or image.

Pictorial Meaning in a Temporal Context: Coins as Pictorial Vehicles between Antiquity and the Present (Module 5)

By describing coins as a social phenomenon, their temporality comes into focus: coins are objects with a history. However, this also opens up a view of their transhistoricity: Aby Warburg succinctly analysed the fact that images bridge large periods of time – and thus also different ‘worlds’ – and introduced the metaphorical concept of image vehicles for this purpose. Coins were hardly ever in his focus, even though they were particularly suitable for this purpose due to their power of action spanning several centuries and their high mobility. Imitations and forgeries bear striking witness to the appropriation of visual models in subsequent centuries – and thus to the specific interests that were linked to ancient imagery in general and ancient coins in particular. By focussing on the reception of coins in post-antiquity, the project makes a significant contribution to the relationship between ancient, medieval and modern imagery.

Images function as 'vehicles' that bridge not only spaces but also times. Although the majority of ancient coins ended up underground, individual pieces were deliberately kept and passed on throughout the Middle Ages, while other objects were picked up as part of chance finds, until the first 'excavations' that brought ancient objects to light finally began during the Renaissance. The history of finds and collections thus already reflects the interest in the medium of coins. However, it is the active reception of their images in post-antique coin publications that makes it possible to understand ancient coins as image vehicles. In addition, coin forgeries are ideally suited to illustrate the temporal dimension of how the various actors dealt with (pictorial) models. The relationship between ancient, medieval and early modern imagery can be described in terms of connectivity and disconnectivity, continuity of meaning and shifts in meaning.

Ancient images were and are places where the gazes of different cultures, both past and present, meet, retrieve different meanings and produce their own interpretations. The concept that meanings are fluid and embedded in the cultural and intellectual framework of the present applies to Greek coin images: their interpretation is inextricably linked to the history of their reception. The module deals with examples of both the ancient and post-antique reception of Greek coinage.