Pictorialism (prelude and fugue)

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksChapterpeer-review

Authors

In 1995 Bill Gates purchased the Bettmann Archive, canonical repository of the pictorial past. Gates’ corporation Corbis moved the collection to Iron Mountain, an underground data-prison, promising to digitize a fraction of the collection and restrict access to the rest. This was not a break with established routines of picture trafficking, but a continuation of the cultural commerce of Otto Bettmann himself. This chapter juxtaposes the career of the Bettmann cultural establishment with the pictorial output of other Weimar practitioners, notably Eduard Fuchs and Herbert Bayer, illuminating what was at stake in rival modes of global image banking. Despite continuities in service delivery, a profound difference of aesthetic allegiance separates Bettmann and Corbis–Bettmann, centered on the role of historicity in the manufacture of image banks.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAesthetics of Universal Knowledge
EditorsSimon Schaffer, John Tresch, Pasquale Gagliardi
Number of pages37
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Publication date01.01.2017
Pages77-113
ISBN (Print)978-3-319-42594-8
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-319-42595-5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.01.2017
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Audio book, Ferris wheel, Thumbnail image, Virtual actuality, Visual professional
  • Philosophy
  • Sociology