Abstrakt
Networks are frequently proclaimed to be a transformation from old rigid hierarchical establishments into new, more dynamic and democratic types of organization. A key feature of the proliferation of this network paradigm are illustrations and visualizations.
The simplifying visual language of nodes and links makes it possible to unify heterogeneous types of interactions and blurs the lines between networks that are physical, virtual, social or mechanical. An important role also plays the attractiveness of these visualizations and their self-proving nature (the initial model is sometimes misinterpreted as a proof).
Networks are becoming a visual symbol of interdisciplinarity or progress and their images are apparent in the contemporary art, cinema and advertising. They are more and more rooted in our visual culture and display the potential to become the symbol of the 21. century.
Networks are depicted even as personifications and allegories. Thus, the discipline of the art history could be well equipped to deal with this new iconography of transformation.