Abstract
This paper proposes a re-reading of Aby Warburg’s notion of the interval as a critical concept for thinking visual knowledge in the digital age. In Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, the interval—the space between images on the panel—is more than a physical gap: it is a conceptual hinge that activates meaning through tension, resonance, and the viewer’s associative perception. As such, the interval is central to Warburg’s epistemology, which privileges movement, discontinuity, and non-linearity over fixed interpretation. But what happens to this interval when the atlas becomes digital? Can Warburg’s visual logic of juxtaposition, delay, and montage be translated into interactive formats? This paper explores these questions through a critical engagement with Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene (2020), a digital platform edited by Anna Tsing and collaborators. Feral Atlas presents a modular landscape of “feral effects” in which users navigate between fragments of scientific, artistic, and narrative content. Rather than offering a straightforward application of Warburgian thinking, Feral Atlas is approached here as a speculative case through which to interrogate the fate of the interval in digital space. Does the clickable, navigable structure of Feral Atlas preserve the affective and epistemic charge of the Warburgian interval—or does it neutralize it through fluidity and user control? By foregrounding the interval as a site of productive instability, this paper reflects on the atlas as a form in transition, and on the challenges and potentials of digital visual scholarship in retaining critical distance, friction, and delay.
Presenters
Maria Victoria BasPhD Researcher, Visual Studies, University of Antwerp, Antwerpen (nl), Belgium
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—From Democratic Aesthetics to Digital Culture
KEYWORDS
Digital Culture, Aby Warburg, Interval, Feral Atlas, Image Theory
