This program is for anyone who loves to observe, doubt, and analyze—but feels lost in the chaos of new image technologies and conflicting “truths.” If you’ve ever zoomed into a photo looking for clues, questioned a viral video, or felt the urge to detect what others scroll past, you belong here. Art historians, journalists, curators, researchers, cultural analysts, media professionals, and armchair detectives—anyone obsessed with evidence, patterns, and visual puzzles will find this lab deeply satisfying.

Participants are introduced to competing definitions of truth, visual truth, and evidence. You will trace a hidden history of deception: hoaxes, forgeries, photomontages, propaganda images, fake news, deepfakes, AI hoaxes—and the people who exposed them. In the second part, you’ll step into an interdisciplinary toolbox: methods from visual studies, cultural and political analysis, epistemology, and the micro-precision of digital humanities. You’ll learn to read not just what an image shows, but what it hides, who it serves, and how it operates as evidence. In the final section, you become the investigator. You will apply these tools to carefully selected cases—some famous, some obscure, some deceptively ordinary—testing how and where we have lost our ability to “read” images, and how you can rebuild a sharper, more resistant, and more adventurous perception.

Introduction to image science topics and methods (asychron) – 3 ECTS

Learn to use the tools. This course introduces the core methods of image science and shows you how different disciplines interrogate images: art history, media studies, cultural studies, political science, digital humanities, and more.

You’ll practice concrete techniques used by researchers and investigators: how to trace sources, reconstruct image histories, perform critical literature research, and evaluate conflicting expert claims. By the end, you’ll have a methodological map—and know which tools to reach for when an image feels “off.”

Visual and Digital literacy (live online) – 3 ECTS

Build your conceptual radar. You’ll gain a clear overview of visual cultures, visual perception, and information aesthetics, and learn how images persuade, confuse, and seduce us. This course follows the shifting idea of “truth” in visual media—from early battles between painting and photography to today’s wars over smartphone footage, livestreams, and viral “proof.”

You’ll discover how different theories of truth (correspondence, construction, manipulation, performativity) quietly structure what we accept as “evidence”—and learn to see those structures at work in everyday images.

Krems Culture Stacks are available at three levels. The tier you choose determines your access, what you receive at the end and the price - but not the quality of the experience.

Observer — €280 for a 6-credit Stack.
Attend the content sessions and receive an attendance statement.

Participant — €580.
Full engagement including lab and workshop sessions, with a statement of active participation.

Crediting — €980.
Assessed work, individual feedback from faculty, and a certificate recording your learning outcomes and grade.

For 3-credit Stacks the fees are €140, €280 and €480. For 9-credit Stacks they are €440, €880 and €1,440. Full details are on each Stack page.