Project

Description

CATARACTS is a research group focused on the flood of images and its effects.

We live in a world saturated with images: billions are produced, circulated, and viewed every day. While scholars have developed sophisticated methods to interpret individual images, they remain ill-equipped to address the scale and dynamics of these massive visual streams. CATARACTS tackles this challenge by shifting the focus from isolated images to the flows, currents, and structures that shape visual culture across time. The project draws on art history, visual studies, digital humanities, and legal studies to analyse how images circulate, accumulate, and transform. Rather than treating today’s visual deluge as entirely unprecedented, CATARACTS situates it within a longer historical perspective, tracing continuities from the past centuries to the present. It explores both the limits of perception in the face of excess and the strategies—conceptual, technical, and critical—that allow us to navigate it. The project ultimately aims to rethink what it means to see, interpret, and regulate images in an age defined by visual abundance.

Funding

A project supported by FUNIGE (2027-2032), hosted at the Faculty of Arts within the Department of Digital Humanities.

Governance

  • Director : Prof. Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, Digital Humanities Chair, director of the Department of Digital Humanities, Faculté des Lettres.
  • Deputy-Director : Dr. Radu Suciu, Senior Research Associate, Faculté des lettres / Faculté de Médecine.

Team

  • Prof. Marie Theres Stauffer, Architecture History, Faculté des Lettres.
  • Prof. Svyatoslav Voloshynovskyy, Computer Science, Faculty of Sciences.
  • Prof. Katarzyna Wac, Qualify of Life Lab & mQoL Living Lab, GSEM.
  • Dr. Taras Holotyak (Computer Science / Multimedia Security & AI), Faculty of Sciences.
  • Dr. Sophia Achab, Addiction Division, HUG and WHO Collaborating Centre in Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine
  • Prof. Tommaso Venturini, Media Studies, MediaLab
  • Prof. Yaniv Benhamou, Digital Law, Faculty of Law