Anne Beaulieu
The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences - VKS
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Network Realism: making knowledge from images in digital infrastructures

Databases of images on the web are increasingly used as resources for everyday practices. Many of these practices focus on knowledge, and contribute to a new way of knowing, termed network realism. Realism designates rich and heterogeneous traditions across different media that have complex histories. As part of the label network realism, realism draws attention to the way images are involved in practices that are factual, material and consequential. The term network invokes the novel contexts and practices around these images. Network realism is used as a shorthand to describe practices, conventions and meanings that support this form of visual knowing. The proposed paper conceptualizes and investigates a widespread but underexamined use of images, at the intersection of digital and networked technologies. The paper draws on concepts from science and technology studies (STS) and new media studies to analyze visual culture via ethnographic fieldwork. Together, they enable analysis of mediation processes and of the dynamics of technologies involved in manipulating and circulating images. STS also emphasises the importance of innovation and embedding of new forms of knowledge, including material and institutional aspects.