Visualisation of a Photo Archive about Diaspora

The three-year GraDiM project, which combines perspectives from cultural studies, digital humanities, information visualisation and human-computer interaction, aims to develop new insights into the archive while maintaining sensitivity to its subject and the people depicted.

GraDiM develops theoretical and technical concepts for the visualisation of the digitised archive of the photographer Frédéric Brenner. His images document the Jewish people in the diaspora from the late 20th to the 21st century, with Brenner alternating between documentary and artistic styles. His work comprises over 100,000 black and white and colour negatives, 8,000 contact prints, art prints, interviews and diaries on paper. The current project is intended not only to make the digitised photographic heritage accessible online, but also to link the individual photographs with each other in a multidimensional way on different levels of relationship.

Although great efforts have been made in recent years in the field of digitisation and online publication, the forms of presentation are still based on tabular and list-like overviews, whereby the preview images arranged in the same format cannot exploit the graphic and dynamic potential of digital access.
The project focuses on the design and evaluation of visualisation and interaction techniques that make it possible to move through different levels of granularity, which can include semantic relationships, photographic processes and visual elements. The visualisation and linking of these levels, which often remain hidden in the extensive photo archives, can thus open up space for an examination of the collection and its cultural significance. Reflection associated with the research is intended to contribute to the development of theory on the methodical use of visualisation techniques in visual studies.

GraDiM is funded by the DFG programme "The Digital Image", which focuses on transdisciplinary research in the field of digital visuality by formalising and reflecting on phenomena, theories and practices. The project is being carried out in the Urban Complexity Lab (UCLAB) at the Department of Design at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Urban Complexity Lab

The UCLAB is an interdisciplinary working group that investigates the possibilities of data visualisation at the interface between interface design, the humanities and computer science. GraDiM builds on a series of research projects that have dealt with the visualisation of cultural collections in recent years.

Project website: https://uclab.fh-potsdam.de/projects/gradim
Duration: 01/01/2023 to 31/12/2025