The theoretical field of visual culture has many forms, just like visual culture itself. It is hard to determine which images (still) fall into this category and which fall within the realm of art history, design and performative arts. Visual studies can thus be seen as a field of research that is highly interdisciplinary, and is closely linked not only to visual arts, design and popular culture but also to social sciences through the methodological approaches it applies to study the images. Is it vital to delimit visual culture studies, or is it best to keep them as open as possible? Which topics have defined the current form of visual studies in the past few years? Does the field of professional, “top-tier” science allow an independent research of image culture, and do universities provide enough space for visual culture studies?
These questions will be answered in Fresh Eye’s online edition by the chief editors of European professional journals dealing with visual culture studies:
Katarzyna Bojarska, WIDOK (Poland) www.pismowidok.org
Asbjørn Grønstad, Ekphrasis (Norway)
