|
|
SCIENCE STUDIES EVENTS
THE VISUAL IMAGE OF SCIENCE
Joachim Schummer
Technical University of Darmstadt
and University of South Carolina
March 16, 2005
Wednesday, 12:30pm-2:00pm
Sumwalt College, Room 102
The talk, which has been prepared together with Tami Spector from the
University of San Francisco, presents a new approach to the study of visual
images of science, both the public image and the self-image. We take
digital images from databases, which can be searched and quantitatively
analyzed by keywords, to identify the relative visibilities, stereotypes,
emblematic objects, and visual associations of scientific disciplines.
Since chemistry turns out to be by far the most visible science, we perform
qualitative analyses of image contents and the iconographic and aesthetic
traditions of selected images of chemistry, including chemical portraits,
landscapes, and still lifes. Among the many results of this exploratory
study, we argue that the visual culture, both concerning the public and
self-image of science, is extremely conservative, such that some visual
stereotypes, like the gazed-at-flask, can be traced back to the 12th
century if not earlier.
 |
|
