Historical Spaces
Foregrounding the subject of Historical Spaces may seem anachronistic since art historians and others have been dealing with it for a very long time. However, things have changed with the ‘spatial turn’: the notion that spaces are not simply (re)presented in various media, but above all created by these very media, has finally gained acceptance. Nevertheless, great efforts still need to be made, particularly in art history, in order to determine how the understanding and mediatisation of historical space can be methodically analyzed.
Several projects in the Department Michalsky are dealing with this phenomenon and the methodological problem of how to analyze it by questioning how historical spaces were and are conceived and constructed through media. This applies to digital reconstructions of historical sacred spaces as well as to the deconstruction of historical spaces in texts, images, and maps. These representations seem to provide immediate access to historical spaces, and yet they have their own agenda and historical conditionality, which must be analyzed in order to adequately understand their conceptual and mediatic framework. A specific focus is dedicated to the possibilities and limitations of digital tools. Digital tools for mapping and three-dimensional reconstruction are tested and discussed in regular meetings and public workshops.
