Developing Online Images

Online images could be considered as traces of the dynamics of social issues. Concurrently, the same images are enrolled in vast algorithmic infrastructures. Specific research registers have been devised to account for, and experience, one or the other of such specificities. The scope of the present contribution is to introduce a possible crossing of the existing registers and to further the role of large image corpora visualizations beyond pure analytical or critical purposes. To this extent, the ʽDEPT.ʼ project is described. A series of visual artifacts —data- and media- visualizations, catalogs, tableaux, and scores― were conceived during the project in order to progressively bring online images to public and participatory settings so as to inquire into situated issues. The paper details the needs, intellectual frameworks, and methodological choices, along with the visual artifacts conceived in the project to develop online images as shared and collective expressions of the issues under inquiry.