David Bucheli studied German Philology (B.A.), Media Studies (B.A. and M.A.), and Science Studies (M.A.) at the Universities of Basel and Lucerne. 2014-2019 student research assistant at the Seminar for Media Studies in Basel (Prof. Markus Krajewski), 2019-2022 manager of the interdisciplinary research project “Early Cinema in Switzerland 1896-1900”. Since 2022 member of the eikones Graduate School.

Test Images. Aesthetics and epistemology of categorical work

When images take the place of other images in order to rehearse their perception, transmission, and interpretation, we can speak of them as “test images”. The ink blots of the Rorschach test, the optotypes for determining visual acuity, or the captchas used by online services to distinguish between human users and automated scripts: They all become operational as test images in experimental setups that problematize the readability of images as images. They test their own status as images as well as the preconditions of their perception and are therefore always embedded in complex relations of observation, in constellations that simultaneously include an examination of the image and its beholders. The research project is interested in the mediating function of test images between things and categories, subjects and technologies. It investigates image applications in historical and contemporary test regimes, looking closely at the very procedures in which they aim at the production of normality and alterity.