The current research projects we have in the German language areas, presenting trends predominantly within the field of East Asian Art History, are concerned with transculturality and transmediality, with a transregional focus on the whole of Asia as ...
The current research projects we have in the German language areas, presenting trends predominantly within the field of East Asian Art History, are concerned with transculturality and transmediality, with a transregional focus on the whole of Asia as well as on Africa and Europe. The application of the term “Transculture” has also produced many fashionable studies in Europe, such as »Global Art History«, »World Art History«, and »Horizontal Art History« and so on. As a result, most of these already mentioned institutions now offer curricula of art histories in global and transcultural contexts. Referring to my own three research topics as an example, I will try to define in which way the theoretical and methodological approaches can be understood in terms of transculturality and transmediality, and how we apply these in practical analysis: - Case study one: Transculturality in terms of transmedia practices from painting to photography in the age of modernity - Case study two: Transcultural processes of translation, appropriation and new interpretation as well as visual misunderstandings as an example of Buddhist art - Case study three: At the limits of transcultural theoretical applications, we utilize of “the eye of parallel seeing”. The aim of this talk is the defining the terms and its practice in more compact way: I could say, that the term transculturality can be understood as a phenomena or concept of meta and basic theory of cultural history, or art history in global context. Under the terms transmediality and translation I understand the approaching methods, which are used to explain the development processes and traces of transcultural phenomena. By using these methods we should find out who translates (actors of transculturalizing) and what (objects of transculture), where (transregional analysis), when (in global-historical context) in which way or how (transcultural practice) and why (anthropological analysis in transcultural, global context). The “parallel seeing” is also one of the comparative approaching methods for anthropological cultural studies on almost visual aesthetical level.