Granularities of dispersion and materiality: Visualizing a photo archive about diaspora

“分散性和重要性的粒度”将为数字化照片档案的学术可视化设计理论和技术概念。该项目将对记录散居国外的犹太人的一组照片的具体特点表现出特别的敏感性。该项目建立在文化研究、数字人文、信息可视化和人机交互研究的基础上。随着材料的转变和数字图像数量的增加，人们对实物、照片档案的看法发生了变化。博物馆、基金会和研究机构越来越多地拥有摄影产业，在德国，国家一级正在出现一个德国联邦摄影研究所，其中知识传播可能是一个主要重点(德国联邦美术馆BKM 2021)。虽然近年来在数字化和在线出版方面作出了很大努力，但呈现方式仍然依赖相同大小和格式的缩略图网格，但可以说，这无法利用数字获取的潜力。我们的研究旨在找到方法，使过程性、选择性和实质性的维度成为档案中留下的痕迹，但也必须通过互动可视化积极地认识到这一点。它解决了跨学科研究的需要，认识到这种内在的痕迹，以开发其可辨认和可探索的表示方法。虽然有许多可视化技术可以提供对抽象数据的远程聚合概述，但仍然很少有技术可以保持集合的独特可视化。到目前为止，特别是在人文数据的背景下，还没有全面的设计空间来以有意义的方式弥合遥远的近景。通过这项研究，我们建议设计和评估可视化和交互技术，以实现关于隐藏在照片档案中的语义、关系、层次、摄影过程和视觉元素的不同粒度之间的转换，允许用户真正遍历数字档案空间。最后，通过仔细反思我们的研究过程，我们的目标是为视觉文化研究中可视化技术的方法论应用做出贡献。优先项目Das Digitale Bild及其研究网络将注意力转向一种迄今鲜有人关注的视觉效果。我们希望通过联合跨学科交流，为形式化和反思现象、理论和实践的努力做出贡献。认识到数字界面的设计是知识生产和传播的关键时刻，我们将在所有三种模式之间摇摆--重点放在实践上，即以设计为导向的研究，制作、打破、反思、迭代、评估界面并将其理论化。

"Granularities of dispersion and materiality" will devise theoretical and technical concepts for the scholarly visualization of digitized photo archives. The project will exhibit particular sensitivity towards the specific characteristics of one photo collection documenting Jewish diaspora. The project builds on research in cultural studies, digital humanities, information visualization, and human-computer interaction. Coinciding with the material turn and the increasing number of digital images the perception of physical, photographic archives has changed. Photographic estates are increasingly held by museums, foundations, and institutes, and, at the national level in Germany, a Bundesinstitut für Fotografie is emerging, where knowledge dissemination is likely to be a major focus (Bundesbeauftragte BKM 2021). While great efforts have been made in recent years in digitization and online publication, the modes of presentation continue to rely on grids of thumbnail images of the same size and format, which, however, are arguably not able to harness the potential that lies in digital access. Our research aims to find means of making the dimensions of processuality, selection, and materiality, which have been left behind as traces in the archives, but must also be actively recognized as such tangible through interactive visualizations. It addresses the need for transdisciplinary research that recognizes such immanent traces to develop approaches for their legible and explorable representation. While there are many visualization techniques that offer distant aggregate overviews of abstracted data, there are still few that preserve the unique visuality of a collection. So far, especially in the context of humanistic data, no comprehensive design space exists to bridge distant with close views in meaningful ways. With this research we propose to design and evaluate visualization and interaction techniques to enable shifts between different levels of granularities with regard to semantics, relations, hierarchies, photographic processes, and visual elements that are hidden inside photo archives, allowing users to traverse genuinely digital archive spaces. Finally, by closely reflecting on our research processes we aim to contribute to theory building on methodological use of visualization techniques in visual culture studies. The priority program Das Digitale Bild and its research network turn their attention to a visuality that has so far received little attention. We want to contribute to the efforts of formalizing and reflecting phenomena, theories, and practices through joint transdisciplinary exchange. Acknowledging the design of digital interfaces as a crucial moment of knowledge production and dissemination, we will oscillate between all three modes—with an emphasis on practices as design-oriented research that makes, breaks, reflects, iterates, evaluates, and theorizes interfaces.