Page - 77 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 01/01

Religion, Belief and Medial Layering of Communication | 77www.jrfm.eu 2015, 1/1, 75–88 a belated reaction to the transdisciplinary opening of the field of “art” and claims to transgress traditional art history, dealing not only with art but also with popular and mass media. yet, this perspective is mainly motivated by installing “Bildwissenschaft” as the new dominant academic paradigm or discipline over other disciplinary fields which are accused of lacking the “essence” of images and their specific qualities. This also implies that “Bildwissenschaften” focus on the meaning of the single, singular image and its author, the artist, instead of on series of images or the moving images that nowadays usually circulate in mass media.7 at least in the German academic community, art history has been one of the disci- plines most resistant of challenges raised by cultural, gender and postcolonial studies, the movements behind or accompanying the concepts of studies in visual cultures. yet some of the questions concerning the basics of structural analysis of possible ele- ments of visual culture(s) – “artwork” being just one of these – are now being raised also in art history. It is influenced by other disciplinary as well as interdisciplinary dis- courses that deal with the cultural meaning and power of images/pictures in the age of globalisation and digital image circulation, such as visual studies, film studies, me- dia studies, and image or imaging sciences. Within the discourse of studies in visual culture questions are being asked that ad- dress the relationships between word and image and between image and gaze as well as the interrelations of image(s), bodies, subjectivities and culture(s) and their visible and invisible relationships with other signifying systems. last but not least, they ad- dress the methodological relationships between literature, or language studies (to which the linguistic turn is ascribed), and art history’s and aesthetics’ legacies. Gender studies, and its aims, perspectives and theoretical debates, have changed extensively the world of academic disciplines during at least the last 25 to 30 years. it is exactly these issues – relationship between word and image, and between image and gaze as well as the interrelations of image(s), bodies, subjectivities and culture(s) – that have been, and still are, at the centre of attention in gender studies since they are crucial concepts in constructing and repeating, but also with the potential to change a gendered world.8 it comes as no surprise that one of the focuses of gender studies has become the discussion of the visible and the invisible within the structures of signification and showing. Questions have arisen concerning the powerful effects of showing and at the same time making invisible. The reflection on signifying prac- tices has proved that it is not possible to identify a “visual culture” as a culture of the visible only. Therefore, a critical reflection on studies in visual culture would always assume that the danger in talking about visual culture(s) lies in implicit essentialism, a criticism which has been formulated for example by Mieke Bal. she argues that stud- 7 Schade 2008, 31–51; Schade: Bildwissenschaften and the Absence of Women: http://blog.zhdk. ch/sigridschade/files/2013/07/Billwissenschaft_and_the_absence_of_women_27_7_09_000.pdf [accessed 27 September 2015]. 8 see härtel/schade 2002, 9–16.