What pictures know
The subject area Knowledge Visualization is celebrating its anniversary: for 75 years, ZHdK has been making knowledge visible. But in what ways does a discipline change when images no longer just perform an explanatory function, but play an increasingly prominent role in determining how we understand the world? A look back—and forwards.
Before knowledge is circulated, argued or discussed, it first has to be made visible. In drawings, models, diagrams or images. For 75 years, ZHdK has been addressing precisely this interface between knowledge and design. What began in 1951 with the first diploma in technical illustration awarded by the former Arts and Crafts School (“Kunstgewerbeschule”) is now a study and research area within the Department of Design that is unlike any other in the whole world. For its anniversary year, the subject area Knowledge Visualization is not only looking back at its history, but also on the role of images in an increasingly complex world. Scientific precision, a creative touch and new technologies culminate in visualizations with applications ranging from medicine and archaeology to the climate crisis, AI and social transformation. Karin Seiler, Head of the Bachelor’s in Knowledge Visualization, and Niklaus Heeb, Head of the subject area Knowledge Visualization, explain how the discipline has changed—and why, now more than ever, images are helping direct the ways in which knowledge emerges and is understood.
