The world can be seen differently...
Our lives are dominated by the speed of communication and with new technology the visual image is everywhere.
Digital imaging and the internet have led to a change in the way we perceive our world and age-old questions about beauty and aesthetics, along with a range of representational categories, take on a new significance.
At the Centre for Visual Fields we are forging original interdisciplinary connections between areas of knowledge that involve different forms of visual experience. Not only are we opening up new spaces for debate within the humanities disciplines of English, philosophy, art history, film studies and photography theory, but we are also developing innovative research projects arising from neglected correspondences between the humanities and the sciences.
By exploring these difficult and uncharted areas between established disciplines the Centre for Visual Fields is pioneering new ways of understanding our visible world.
Pioneering work in the Centre for Visual Fields
In a world dominated by the speed of communication, the infinitely reproducible visual image is ubiquitous, occupying diverse social and cultural contexts. Recent developments in local and global visual practices, such as digital imaging and the internet, have led to a crucial turning point in which age-old questions take on new resonance; questions, for example, about beauty, the relevance of classical aesthetic categories, about how we understand the visual nature of a photograph in relation to that of a painting or a film. More than ever before, discrete academic disciplines prove inadequate in understanding such a complex domain. Emerging from a strong commitment to interdisciplinary research in the School of Humanities, the Centre for Visual Fields forges new connections between different areas of knowledge that involve many different forms of visual experience and visual encounter.
Referring both to specific areas of knowledge and to aspects of the act of visual perception itself, the 'fields' in the title of the Centre are united through an investment in visual processes and the use of technologies to achieve new understanding of the acts of seeing and representing the visual world. Our research focuses on fundamental debates about the visual, ranging from founding myths in the Western tradition of representation through to the impact upon practices of current 21st-century technologies.
Historically, the study of visual perception and visual representation brought together diverse areas of intellectual enquiry (literary, philosophical, art historical, scientific) and, reflecting the interest in visual representation of a wider community, the Centre for Visual Fields is continuing this interdisciplinarity in pioneering ways. For example, a project entitled 'Mediation, Eye Movement and the Viewing Subject' will involve collaboration with colleagues in neuroscience, bringing together original work on the history and theory of photography with new scientific research on eye movement and fixation. In so doing, it will newly chart the significance in 19th-century photography of various methods of optical mediation.
By exploring these difficult and uncertain areas between established disciplines, we are able to facilitate both new and long-forgotten conversations.
