Creative unrest in the media exhibitions
Four exhibitions held by the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) "Mediality –Historical Perspectives" endeavoured to change the public perception of the media and to present research expertise to capture the audience by resorting to medieval forms of communication.
Media is usually taken to mean newspapers, television and radio – or new forms of mass communication such as Facebook or Twitter. The researchers in the NCCR "Mediality ", are not satisfied with examining an individual medium, or the technology it involves. They are far more interested in the complex media set-up that had already existed before the spread of modern mass media.
They ask questions such as what can be used as medium and when can a medium create meaning, or even exercise power? "We are interested in the historical dimensions and conditions of mediality," explains Martina Stercken, coordinator of NCCR "Mediality" and lecturer at the Historical Seminar at the University of Zurich "Such an historical-cultural interpretation of media has not found its voice until now."
When researchers in the humanities report their findings, they usually do so in specialised journals or articles for edited volumes. However, the researchers of NCCR "Mediality" wanted to produce more than just an academic paper. The home institution of NCCR "Mediality" is the University of Zurich, which celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2008. The NCCR used this occasion to present the fruits of their labour to a wider audience. The idea was to bring their scientific knowledge to a broader audience. "We wanted visitors to rediscover the lost meanings and functions of media by observing historical objects – and perhaps to find it a little disturbing," comments Martina Stercken.
This attempt at stirring up a little creative controversy took the form of four exhibitions which were presented last year at two locations in Zurich as well as in the St. Gall Abbey Library and Zug Castle Museum. Each exhibition focused on different cultures and times, but maintained the common preoccupation with the symbolic power exercised by the written word and the way it is presented – from the Middle Ages to the present day.
"The type of texts in ancient European culture allow us to identify the principles of medial relationships that are becoming more important again today," state the organizers of the exhibitions. Two objects from the four exhibitions underscore the success of the transfer of this knowledge from the past to the present and from science to the general public. In 1480 Dean Albrecht von Bonstetten from Einsiedeln drew a description of the Swiss confederation territory. It contains the first map of the Swiss Confederation – consisting of several districts. In the centre, there is an illustration of the Rigi depicted as the queen of the mountains. Framing the illustration are the titles of the eight towns surrounding it and associated with the confederation at the time, positioned in a correct geographical arrangement. "What at first might appear to be a childlike illustration, has actually been carefully planned down to the last detail," explains Martina Stercken. Albrecht von Bonstetten adopts the mediaeval representation of the world, but puts the Swiss Confederation at the centre, whereas many mediaeval maps placed Jerusalem in the middle. In doing so, he incorporates the Swiss Confederation into the Christian history of salvation and ascribes sacred origins to it. Albrecht von Bonstetten also creates a clever historical concept – he portrays the Swiss Confederation as an ideal unit that even then did not exist in such a form.
Even before Bonstetten's map, which he created after 1455, Henry Suso wrote his guide to moral conduct Suso, a German mystic of the 14th century, belonged to the Dominican order and in his guide he describes a cycle in which man first accepts God into his soul and is then immersed in the devine. The guide tries to portray this indescribable mystical process in figurative form. The Holy Trinity, however, is only presented in an abstract form, i.e. as a triple ring symbol, which raised the question of whether it was acceptable (or even possible) to depict God at all. "Ultimately, HenrySuso’s guide demonstrates that the function of images could be interpreted as an early form of dialectic media criticism," explains Cornelia Herberichs from the Department of German Literatureat the University of Zurich.
Handwritten documents, records or pictures: Switzerland has many historical objects that can serve as examples of how media function in certain contexts and situations. "Presenting this in an exhibition was a challenge for the young NCCR "Mediality" researchers whose projects dealt with historical forms of production," remarks Martina Stercken.
The exhibitions were popular and very positively received. And anyone who learned how to decipher Albrecht von Bonstetten's first map of the Swiss Confederation might be more aware of the suggestive power of illustrations the next time they look at a newspaper or the Internet.