FIG.
1: Photograph of
VISUALITY, VISUALIZING, IMAGING
In science and technology, numerous forms of graphi-
cal information are often referred to quite generally as
“representations” of something, in contrast or addition
to alternative terms such as depiction or reproduction
that suggest a direct resemblance between (or a mimetic
approximation of ) an image and the object it seems to
substitute for. On the other hand, the ambiguous term
representation carries diverse (artistic, political, theatri-
cal) connotations and so is not altogether suitable to
the specific problems of research in the natural sciences
(Elkins 2008). Since the 1980s, it has increasingly been
questioned and replaced by alternative expressions such
as visualization or rendering visible. In contradistinc-
tion to the notion of a passive representation of things
and the resemblance it entails, these terms are meant
to describe the productive and constructive aspect of
imaging in scientific practice (Rheinberger, Hagner, and
126
the moon taken with
a survey camera by
Kenneth Mattingly
from Apollo 16, April
1972. It was taken
during a return flight
from the moon from
a distance of around
1,600 km. The
boundary between
the moon’s near
side and the far side,
which cannot be seen
from the Earth, runs
through the center of
the picture. NASA.
Wahrig-Schmidt 1997; Huber and Heller 1999; Haupt
and Stadler 2006; Elkins 2008), where images appear-
ing on the computer screen are usually translations of
measurements into models that give visual access to the
object of research. The creation of such images depends
on basic research and knowledge in fields such as physics
or biochemistry and demands considerable technical and
financial efforts. As an essential and sometimes exclusive
means of observation and operation, such images also
stand for a fundamental epistemological shift and a new
paradigm of visuality (a term coined by visual culture
studies) in technology-based societies (Elkins 1999).
In the literal sense, visualization could refer to any
kind of man-made visual pattern, ranging from diagrams
to radiographs, that renders an object or a fact percep-
tible to the human eye. As already stated by pioneers
of modern and abstract art, the aesthetic manifestation
FIG. 2 (above): An analysis of the ozone distribution over Antarctica
recorded using the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV/2) instrument of
the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and showing
the hole in the ozone layer on October 15, 1987.

FIG. 3 (top right): Radar image of a heavy storm southwest of Spring

Lake, New Jersey, July 27, 1944. From the “AAF Manual 105-101-2
Radar Storm Detection” issued by U.S. Army Air Forces Headquarters,
August 1945.

FIG. 4 (bottom right): Ultrasound picture of a fetus during the first half
of pregnancy, 2008. Sonography enables gynecologists to make a non-
invasive diagnosis and examine the development of the child’s body and
organs while it is still in the womb. Private archive of Vera Dünkel.

of emotions, ideas, or imaginings might likewise be
regarded as a kind of visualization of the unseen, compa-
rable to scientific practices. Enhancing the eye by using
optical instruments such as a microscope or a telescope
reveals new visible worlds (fig. 1); photography and film
capture time and motion in a variety of forms and thereby
define them (cf. Snyder 1998). Such a wide interpreta-
tion would be supported by the fact that the term visual-
ization is also used for design solutions and screen-based
media of all kinds for the virtual modeling and simulation
of constructions and surfaces in architecture, in industrial
design, or in the games industry, where three-dimen-
sional figures are usually created out of large quantities of
numerical data (Elkins 2007; Lima 2011; Wilson 2002).
In contrast with a broad interpretation of the term
visualization, imaging is often and explicitly used in medi-
cal and scientific contexts to describe particular proce-
dures and equipment and the problems involved with
their application in these areas. Here, images may be the
result of mechanical phenomena recorded graphically
(e.g., blood pressure, seismic events) or of extended elec-
tromagnetic wave spectra made visible (fig. 2); they may
also be based on the active emission of pulses (figs. 3 and
4). Imaging includes the electronic registration of objects
in scanning tunneling microscopy, which uses reference
values to create an interaction with the object, the sum-
mation of radiological data in medicine, and comparable
tomographic means of observation, e.g., in brain research
(fig. 5). Subsequent to the success of electronic media
and the possibility of displaying data measurements
on a computer screen, terms like imaging have become
primarily associated with digital media. However, imag-
ing can as well remain entirely analog; see, for instance,
the tracing of sound curves by oscilloscope (fig. 6) or the

127 Visuality, Visualizing, Imaging


FIG. 5: Plate from a computer tomography textbook: examples of CT
images showing axial sections of six patients with intracerebral hemor-
rhage. The hematomas are recognizable as lighter areas in the tomogram.
Sebastian Lange et al., Cerebral and Spinal Computerized Tomography,
2nd rev. ed. (New York: Karger, 1989), 95, plate 38. S. Karger AG, Basel.
“sound figures” of Ernst Chladni, who visualized acoustic
oscillations as patterns in sand in the late eighteenth
century (fig. 7).
When the alleged object under investigation is
brought into the register of the visible, screens, prints,
or algorithms themselves become a field of operations.
Classifications, experiments, and changes to parameters
turn the visible image into a product of interventions
that refers to the object only indirectly, through the
“inscription” of measurements (Latour and Woolgar
1986). This has raised fundamental questions concern-
ing the interpretation of results based on visual tools
(Hacking 1983). The philosopher of science Hans-Jörg
Rheinberger has regarded such images, in a systematic
way, as the product of a constructive process of “per-
forming” knowledge (Rheinberger, Hagner, and Wahrig-
Schmidt 1997, 2001). Owing to their artificial character,
images created in this manner are subject to the respec-
tive rules of representation, e.g., in terms of coloring,
spatiality, perspective, scale, and speed; deliberately or
unintentionally, their producers abide by these rules so
as to provide better means of analysis and evaluation (cf.
Lynch and Edgerton 1988).
128
FIG. 6: Acoustic wave recordings made using the early oscillograph of
Dayton Clarence Miller, called the Phonodeik, around 1910. From top
to bottom: brass band music, a bell ringing, and the sound of a rocket.
V. J. Phillips, Waveforms: A History of Early Oscillography (Bristol:
A. Hilger, 1987), 58, fig. 2.53.
Visualization and imaging are thus in many ways syn-
onymous; the latter has become the established term of
art, especially in the medical equipment industry, where
images can become the basis of vital decisions, diagno-
sis, and treatment. Nevertheless, since visualized data is
increasingly present in the “operation theater,” there are
still intersections with a performative notion of “repre-
sentation.” —MB
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Elkins, James. Visual Practices across the University. Munich: Wilhelm Fink
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Foster, Hal, ed. Vision and Visuality. Seattle: Bay Press, 1988.
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Haupt, Sabine, and Ulrich Stadler, eds. Das Unsichtbare sehen: Bildzauber,
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violin bows or loudspeakers create frequency-dependent patterns on the plate. Alexander Lauterwasser, Wasser Klang Bilder. Die
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129 Visuality, Visualizing, Imaging