Sehr geehrte Leser*innen,

die aktuelle, nunmehr 43. Ausgabe der IMAGE, erscheint in enger Zusammen­arbeit mit dem Herbert von Halem Verlag. Sie enthält dieses Mal zahlreiche Beiträge des wissenschaftlichen Symposiums an der MSD – Münster School of Design aus dem Jahr 2024, welches von Lars Grabbe organisiert wurde. Die Beitragenden des Symposiums widmeten sich dem aktuellen und spannenden bildwissenschaftlichen Thema »Crossmediale Ästhetiken und postmoderne Mythenmaschinen: Bildkritik und Kommunikation im postfaktischen Zeit­alter«. Wir möchten allen Beteiligten Referent*innen und den hier versammelten Autor*innen – und natürlich auch besonders dem Herbert von Halem Verlag – unseren Dank für die Unterstützung zu dieser Ausgabe der IMAGE aussprechen. Den geneigten Leser*innen wünschen wir eine anregende Lektüre!

Die Herausgeber*innen der IMAGE

Lars Grabbe, Zhuofei Wang und Goda Plaum

Von Lars C. Grabbe | Erzählungen bilden eine anthropologische Grundkonstante kultureller Praxis. Sie dienen nicht nur der Beschreibung von Lebenswelten, sondern verleihen diesen zugleich Sinn, strukturieren soziale Ordnungen und stiften individuelle wie kollektive Identität. Bereits vor der Fixierung durch mediale Speicherungen zirkulierten mythische Erzählungen in mündlicher Form. Die in Keilschrift überlieferten Tontafeln des Gilgamesch-Epos markieren einen frühen Höhe­punkt dieser Entwicklung, während prähistorische Fels- und Höhlenbilder noch ältere visuelle Spuren mythischer und symbolischer Narration bewahren. Narrative sind damit untrennbar an mediale Konfigurationen gebunden. Ihre Gestalt und Funktion resultieren aus spezifischen Zeichenformationen, techni­schen Bedingungen und kulturellen Konstellationen. Erzählungen treten in je konkrete Rezeptionskontexte ein, nehmen Form in historischen Materialitäten an und entfalten ihre Wirkung über kreative Produktionsstrategien ebenso wie über soziale Verwendungsweisen.

By Thomas Hirschhorn | How to do art in times of war, destruction, violence, anger, hate, resentment? What kind of art should be done in moments of darkness and desperation? Can art be a tool for understanding history’s changes? Can a work of art draw alternative forms of understanding the world? How to continue working – as an artist – and in doing so, avoid falling into the traps of facts, journalism, and comments? I want to ask myself these questions and above all, I want to create, with my work, a surface of reflection. I don’t pretend to resolve or offer solutions, but I want my work “Fake it, Fake it – till you Fake it” to contribute to this problematic, as a form cutting a break-through in the analog into the digital.

Von Christiane Wagner | This study analyzes the influence of media – especially in urban spaces – on society and culture, with a particular focus on the presentation of sustain­ability topics in audiovisual formats. It examines narrative techniques in audiovisual media that aim to foster audiences’ empathy and understanding of the interdependence between living spaces and the natural environment. The aim is to analyze the interactions between contemporary physical and virtual urban spaces, considering research gaps about imagination and non-real images as effects of cross-media effects on living spaces, their languages, and representations. Methodologically, the study is based on a qualitative analysis examining the relationship between digital technology, audiovisual media narratives, and contemporary communication’s ethical and aesthetic meanings. The study also analyzes the perception-based knowledge used to verify facts in audiovisual designs and the effects of digital updates and artificial intelligence on media aesthetics. Ultimately, the research aims to provide insights into the cross-media influence on the relevance of sustainability in the design and dissemination of images, including the effects on perception, knowledge, and the differentiation of facts. The hypothesis is that cross-media effects can legitimize sustainable development in society by influencing the public’s ability to act.

Von Lars C. Grabbe | In recent years, the phenomenon of Skinwalker Ranch has attracted increasing media attention, particularly through the television series The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch (im folgenden abgekürzt als TSOSR), which has aired four seasons since 2020. The series documents a wide array of unexplained phenomena occurring on a remote site in northeastern Utah, blending observational elem­ents typical of reality TV with features of scientific documentary filmmaking. This paper argues that TSOSR functions not merely as entertainment, but as a complex mode of epistemic-aesthetic knowledge production. It intertwines scientific communication, narrative mythopoetics, and sensory-visual aesthetics in a way that challenges conventional distinctions between fact and fiction, science and myth, objective observation and subjective experience. Through its carefully crafted storytelling and visual presentation, TSOSR creates a unique epistemological space where paranormal phenomena are both investigated and mythologized, producing a tension between skepticism and belief in the audience. This study examines how the series negotiates these boundaries and utilizes media strategies to shape perceptions of reality and knowledge. Ultimately, TSOSR emerges as a cultural phenomenon that merges scientific inquiry with mythic narrative structures, offering a novel approach to understanding and engaging with the mysterious and unexplained in contemporary media.

Von Marcus Stiglegger | The movement predominantly employs aesthetically appealing, high-­contrast imagery. Its stylised representation of masculinity serves to project strength, discipline, and willingness to sacrifice. Video productions are frequently accompanied by dramatic music and incorporate drone footage, slow-motion sequences, contemporary typography, and black-and-white aesthetics. Content is organised in a clear structure, narrated in an emotive manner, and imbued with pathos. Videos typically conclude with a call to action. On Instagram and Telegram, targeted use is made of memes, infographics, and short-form videos to disseminate narratives such as the “Great Replacement” or “remigration” in youth-oriented language. The designs are minimalist and bold, often employing high-contrast typography and succinct slogans – deliberately crafted to be compatible with other subcultures such as streetwear, gaming, or conspiracy communities.
A central element of the movement’s visual strategy is its deliberate dis­sociation from conventional neo-Nazi aesthetics. Instead, IB activists present themselves as fashionable start-up founders or political lifestyle bloggers. This visual coding is intended to convey credibility and intellectual sophistication—a calculated strategy of obfuscation designed to mask the underlying ideological content.

Von Elisabeth Sommerlad | Island paradises are culturally coded and powerfully charged topoi em­bedded in image politics and narratives, rather than representing neutral spaces of longing. There are numerous conceptions of paradise, which are partly understood as idealised imaginations and partly as geographical fixations. This paper examines the case of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, exploring how specific notions of paradise manifest in cross-media aesthetics; that is, the transmedial design and circulation of visual and discursive meanings, and how these notions shape contemporary spatial production and identity formation. The analysis focuses on three selected perspectives that convey and transform myths of paradise, which are temporally and spatially distinct yet entangled: (1) eighteenth-century colonial paradise imaginations, when Mauritius was conceived in literature as an exotic utopia; (2) contemporary image politics, where the island is staged as a paradisiacal setting on digital tourist platforms; and (3) future visions articulated in real estate and smart city projects, where historically inherited and newly emerging visions of paradise overlap. The paper demonstrates how these cross-media construct­ions of paradise influence the island‘s sociospatial configurations, producing both colonial continuities and new patterns of dependency. By interweaving historical narratives, contemporary visual languages and politically charged future visions, the paper offers a postcolonial interpretation of the medial staging of Mauritius as a paradise island. In doing so, it contributes to debates on aesthetic and medial practices of staging and narrative spatial productions in postcolonial contexts.

Von Martina Sauer | Referring to Marshall McLuhan, it can be confirmed that new media have altered the role models for women (and men). A comparison of two protagonists, the performer Jana Sterbak (1987) and the musician Lady Gaga (2010), illustrates this change, as well as the shift in storytelling from the factual to the post-factual age. The anger expressed by women in the 1980s and 1990s about their own behaviour is changing in the 2010s. It is being replaced by serenity. A game with mental images begins, in which, on the one hand, femininity is accepted and, on the other hand, it is playfully varied and expanded. Media-theoretical and socio-philosophical positions from Kant to the present provide the basis for comparison. In the spirit of ‘storytelling forever,’ it becomes clear that rules and role models have always shaped us. However, this does not preclude change. It is precisely this playful, carefree, post-factual approach that enables us to play with them more freely and carefree.

Von Gerald Dagit | This article examines how national founding myths are being transformed into post-factual narratives in the war against Ukraine. It focuses on an art photography taken in 2023 by French artist Émeric Lhuisset, which visually re­­­interprets Ilya Repin’s iconic painting Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, thereby projecting a centuries-old tradition of resistance into the present. Together with the cultural Ukrainian figures Taras Shevchenko and Myk­­hailo
Hrushevsky, it becomes clear that myths not only touch on deep layers of memory politics but also become strategic resources in the current media war. The essay shows that new forms of symbolic interpretive authority are establishing themselves in the interplay of art, historical politics, and propaganda.

Von Paul Wiersbinski | In April 2010, the now deceased and probably most influential US film critic Roger Ebert wrote a short article on his blog in which he denied computer games or games in general the possibility of ever fulfilling the essential characteristics of a work of art. To date, the article has received over 5000 comments. Until a few years ago, computer games had mainly negative connotations in public debates, but now the discourse on the perception of titles is shifting towards relevant cultural artifacts. Recently, several publications have appeared that also explicitly describe large commercial works in the field of art and locate them in the process of avant-garde education (Thomas Hensel) or even draft their own philosophy of computer games (Martin Feige). Nevertheless, this assessment is still controversial, especially in the field of visual arts (Stephan Schwingeler). This text will illustrate this line of argumentation with the concrete description of a section of the game Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks) and argue in favor of understanding games as artistic artifacts.