Two completely different concepts of visibility exist in the discourse on visual phenomena: a sociological-cultural science-inspired concept that deals with who becomes visible or remains invisible when and under what conditions, and a pictorial phenomenological concept in the philosophical tradition, which deals with what becomes visible in the image as a field between object, representation, perception, and imagination and concerns recognition as visual thinking. This text is concerned with the question to what extent both terms can be fruitfully related to each other, especially since both emphasize the socio-historical context, which is crucial for the idea of transformative imagery.

Especially in the context of commercial and economic relevance for social media, there is currently a discussion about “visualization” and “visibility design”. This raises the question of the extent to which we have such visibility at all or whether economic interests and the media’s own logic are not rather the determining factors. The fact that in this context of design and visualization not only dissemination or visual laws apply, but also questions of power, is already addressed in Foucault’s concept of dispositif (cf. Mitterhofer, 2016 for visual representations). Focusing on questions of (in)visibility, or at least thinking about them, therefore also means considering the context and the practice of showing, i.e. actors, power relations, material conditions, in addition to the concrete image.

Visibility as an image-theoretical concept

In order to sharpen attention to the nuances of the visual effect (which arises in the process of image creation, design, pictoriality, mediality, and reception), it is worth taking a closer look at a phenomenological concept of the image that – like Karl Mannheim – shifts the view to the question of how – in the sense of design and perception. Here, too, the image is considered an artificial generation technique of visibility. In this respect, an image is the product of a visibility design (Wiesing, 2000, p. 281f.). Waldenfels (2009, p. 15) distinguishes between “implikativer, medialer und reflexiver Sichtbarkeit”. In this differentiation, we gain distinction: while media visibility relies directly on the illustrative image, the concept of the implicit refers to the context that is always present (historically as well as currently), and in reflection the term refers to the act of seeing in which all this is perceived at the same time.

The fact that content analyses are not suitable for even naming the essential substance and transformative aspects of imagery becomes apparent when, for example, photographs from a longer period of time are examined; often neither image themes nor image designs change significantly, and yet the development, for example, from analogue to digital photography has changed something – even beyond practices – which we always see. We perceive images with our experiences of seeing images. This is because images are embedded in the “Verflechtungs- und Bedingungsverhältnisse von Kultur und Visualität” (Rimmele & Stiegler, 2012, p. 11; see also Mietzner, 2021).

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Bernhard Waldenfels (2009), and, in a precise interpretation of the visual, Lambert Wiesing (2000) describe that it is not so much the depicted object itself as the ‘style’ in which it is shown that is decisive for its meanings, i.e. the meanings of the visual are not exhausted in the object and its symbolisms, nor only in the practices and structures. The iconicity of the image unfolds in the interpenetrations of these aspects. Technicality and mediality, the visual objects shown, the formal presentations and positioning, as well as bodily constitutions and visual relationships, the relationship between figure and ground, spatial designs, etc. make up the pictorial configuration. This also includes the presentation of the picture and the viewers themselves.

In phenomenology, the concept of the visible is related to the invisible. There is no visibility without the invisible (Wiesing, 2000, p. 268). “Etwas zeige sich als mehr und als anders, als es ist” (Waldenfels, 2012, p. 9; italics in original in Scholz, 2021, p. 82). And images are practically created with the purpose of making the invisible visible – this is where their “Spielraum des Sehens” (Sternagel, 2014, p. 297) lies.

Visibility between exclusion and openness

From here, it makes sense to reintegrate the sociological concept of visibility, because it illustrates how socially constituted those processes of shaping and perceiving the pictorial are and which visual dispositifs influence us.

If we think of both concepts of visibility together, the sociological concept also enlightens us about facets of perception, because only that for which terms are found becomes visible to us. And vice versa: Through a phenomenologically inspired concept of visibility, we sense the way in which a thing is shown to us as something that we cannot yet capture in words. Visual thinking lies in this tension.