Affective Dynamics of Images in the Era of Social Media: Photographic Testimonies, Images of Martyrs and Videos of Suicide-Bombers in North and West Africa (B01)

• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology ; Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 258523721

The project, informed by art history and media anthropology, examines the image repertoires of current political protest movements on the basis of two regional case studies on Egypt (uprisings 2011) and South Africa (#RhodesMustFall and others, since 2012). By analyzing image testimonies from social media, the project aims to trace how affective dynamics are formalized in images and to investigate how they eventually become iconic as emotionally grounded image formulas (of indignation, resistance, mourning, etc.). This also includes to scrutinize broader networks of iconographic genealogies and traditions (e.g. historical and trans-local references), which are effective in digital image cultures of protest.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1171: Affective Societies: Dynamics of Social Coexistence in Mobile Worlds
• Applicant Institution: Freie Universität Berlin
• Project Head: Professor Dr. Tobias Wendl