In this project course, we will explore, analyze and design visualizations of cultural collections. In collaboration with the photographer Frédéric Brenner and the research project GraDiM, we will explore possibilities of showcasing and narrating a photographic archive (with over 100.000 images) of the Jewish diaspora. The aim is to create data visualizations that open insightful and innovative perspectives into the photo archive. Among others, the research questions are: How can we find new visual forms, from overviews of the whole archive to detail views of the photographs? How do we enable navigation between different levels of granularities with regard to semantics, relations, photographic processes, and visual elements? How do we find narrative threads that guide through the archive, disclosing production and selection processes? Advanced students of interface design, cultural management, and information sciences will form interdisciplinary project teams and carry out hands-on research ranging from data analysis to content creation and curation, and prototyping. The results of the course will be collaboratively developed and documented in the form of a research paper and a web demo.

The main language of teaching for this course is English!

The course is interdisciplinary and open to advanced students from Design, Cultural Management, and Information Sciences. Due to room and supervision capacities, the course is limited to a maximum of 25 participants. Participants should have basic knowledge or at least a keen interest in either data visualization, data analysis, or the discourses around (digital) photographic collections.