Description:

Visual Contagions focuses on the global circulation of images from the 1890s to the 1990s, prior to the advent of the Internet and the immense paradigm shift in the circulation of images it brought about. Its raison d’être is to understand how images have contributed to the globalization of cultures, and their role in the diffusion of symbolic dominations. The project starts from the unprecedented availability of massive digitized corpora containing images, such as exhibition catalogues, illustrated magazines, posters and works of art. These digital sources can be crossed with press reviews and archival material, to explain how artistic and media images circulated globally and how they have helped to disseminate styles and visual patterns, as well as new ideas about politics and about the body.