Research Cooperation
Digital Images: Visual Cultures, Algorithms, and Ethical Challenges
In 2022 and 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI) reached the public: ChatGPT and Midjourney became well-known for AI-generated texts and images. To create images, AI draws from existing digital and digitalized images. Ethical question concerning visual culture appear more pressing than ever. Research investigates image sharing online, permeations of digital real life, multilayered breaches of consent, in copyright, law and on individual level, and the societal responsibility for click workers who try to clean social media from visual gore. We also envision to think about solutions and problem solving, for example artistic counter images, artistic interventions to circumvent censorship online, innovative methods to combine theory and practice such as artistic research and participatory practices in media ethnography.
Nausikaä El-Mecky is tenure track professor in History of Art & Visual Culture at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Her publications include the monograph The Creation of Dangerous Images in Iconoclasm, Censorship and Vandalism (forthcoming). Evelyn Runge is Principal Investigator at the Institute of Media Culture and Theatre at the University of Cologne. Her research on digital images is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). Both are members of the working group Taste of the Algorithm Working Group, founded by El-Mecky in 2023 to uncover and mitigate online censorship of images.
During our cooperation, we approached the themes of digital images through various modalities. Firstly, during two public events - one public lecture, and one Masterclass for Students performed by Prof. Dr. El-Mecky -, we delved into the topic of digital images, algorithms, taboos and cultural tendencies through lectures as well as animated discussions with the attendees. The 53. Cologne Media Conversations were sponsored by the Zentrum für Medienwissenschaften und Moderneforschung (MeMo) of the University of Cologne (https://memo.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/cologne-media-conversations/sose-2024/nausikaae-el-mecky).
We developed the framework for a funding proposal, and received excellent feedback and advice on this from the university’s “Research Management” division. Simultaneously, we drafted the concept for a related publication and identified suitable journals to propose our future article to. We are delighted that our week in Cologne together has let to so many fruitful results, made possible by the generous funding from the Competence Area IV, and the DFG project “The Digital Image” 8https://mekuwi.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/forschung/laufende-projekte/dr-evelyn-runge-glokalisierung-des-digitalen-bildes).
Dr. Evelyn Runge (Cologne), Prof. Nausikaä El-Mecky (Barcelona)
Further Information:
https://memo.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/cologne-media-conversations/sose-2024/nausikaae-el-mecky
https://mekuwi.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/forschung/vortraege/gastvortrag-prof-dr-nausikaae-el-mecky
https://mekuwi.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/forschung/vortraege/masterclass-mit-prof-dr-nausikaae-el-mecky