Visual Culture

Images are everywhere and now have a more prominent place than ever in our everyday lives. 

Research into ‘Visual Culture’ has been coordinated by the Visual Culture Research Group since 2005. As one of the university’s flagship research initiatives, ‘Visual Culture’ has succeeded in uniting different research areas and practice-related course offerings. The research cluster follows a transdisciplinary approach and involves various departments within the Faculty of Humanities & Education, but also draws in researchers from other faculties at the University of Klagenfurt. Several research projects are currently being carried out under the excellence initiative. In addition to lecture series and guest lectures, the manifold research efforts in this field regularly result in numerous publications (see Research Information System).

In recent years, research activities have been bundled and given a distinct profile, and researchers are increasingly interlinked around the following three central research (and teaching) pillars:

• Image worlds as agents of transnationality; transnational film studies, especially in relation to the Alps-Adriatic region; visual culture and (gender, ethnic-cultural) difference as well as images as mediators between cultures and as a medium of exclusion and delimitation in general.
• The public image; in particular visual culture as a medium for creating a political public sphere; popularisation (including popularisation of science); visual media of populism; political iconography; film as a medium of the political; art and political activism; aesthetics of the public sphere and the media use of civil society movements.
• Practices and imaginings of the visual: particularly the interconnections between science and artistic research; the media use of consumers and amateurs; audience and reception Research.

As of the winter semester of 2018/19, the range of degree programmes offered at the University of Klagenfurt includes the Master’s degree programme in Visual Culture (programme information in German only).