Tracking the Circulation of Images Digitally: From Artistic Cartography to the Study of Visual Contagions

How do images and styles spread out over time and place? Art historians can use digital methods to study "visual contagions" - how images circulate as material artefacts (paintings, sculptures, engravings, etc.) or in reproductions (in illustrated periodicals, in photography, or on the internet…), through which channels (cultural, geographical, political, social, economical, institutional, human…) and according to which logics. In this video we present how certain sources make it possible to reconstruct the trajectories of images using the historical clues to their circulation. The example of the Artl@s Project (https://www.artlas.huma-num.fr) shows the interest of serial and cartographic methods to study artistic circulations from homogeneous sources such as exhibition catalogues. We also address the new possibilities offered by deep learning and artificial intelligence algorithms applied to images.

Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel (University of Geneva)

Projet MemoRekall