Die Fotografie - ein neues Bildmedium im Wissenschaftspanorama des 19. Jahrhunderts. Einführung in das Symposium

Abstract

Photography – a novel medium of scientific representation in the XIXth century array of arts and sciences. To delve into various nineteenth century academic disciplines under the heading ‘photography in the arts and sciences’ as did last year's annual conference of the History of Science Society – the interest in such a topic only partly stems from the ‘iconic turn’ that has generally enlarged the scope of the social sciences in recent years. A more poignant feature in any such present day study will probably be a basic scepticism facing the fact that in public use photographs have been manipulated in many respects. Yet, while shying away from any simple success story, a historically minded approach to changing ‘visual paradigms’ (Historische Bildwissenschaft) has begun to emerge. In this context, it has proved of considerable heuristic value to reconsider the role of early photography in an array of science, arts and technology: Since the reliance on the traditional ways of sketching reality persisted, in many an instance where photography was introduced, the thoughts the pioneer photographers had about their new, seemingly automated business, call for close attention. Thus scholarship sets up a parallel ‘discussion room’; the lively debate on the benefit of academic drawings as opposed to photographic portraits is a case in point. Some fairly specialised reports on photographically based analyses, such as electron microscopy, point to a borderline where the very idea of representation as a correspondence of reality and imagination gets blurred. Even though any ‘visual culture’ will have to shoulder the ‘burden of representation’, it is equally likely that it will offer a deeper sensibility for the intricacies entailed in the variegated ways of illustrating or mapping chosen subjects of scientific interest. Scholarship may thus somewhat control the disillusionment that by now has become the epitome of writing on photographic history. Provided with a renewed methodological awareness for the perception process and its photographic transition, historians may strike a better balance between the ever present tendencies of a realistic and an aesthetic way of picturing the world we live in.