The project considers the bastion to be an omnipresent cipher within the visual culture of the Early Modern period. The increased demand for topographical images coincides with an enhanced ornamental prominence, whereby the representation of fortifications functions as a metonymic conduit for the conveyance of urbanity. The project’s research interest is focused on this significant intersection between the histories of science, technology, art, and architecture, as part of an evolving framework of perception and representation techniques. These are rooted in both linear perspective and cartography, thereby creating an environment that is increasingly mapped through triangulation. This research marks a shift in focus towards small-scale surveying campaigns and their implications for the dialectic of urban design and representation, with a particular emphasis on the period between 1500 and 1800. During the fellowship, the fortification of Vienna and related archival material will be examined as a case study.

Maria Männig explores the interfaces between art history and media studies. Since 2020, she has been a research associate at the Institute of Art History and Fine Arts at RPTU in Landau (Professorship Kepetzis). Prior to this, she worked at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in the supplementary area of media theory and practice, as well as at the University of Design (HfG) Karlsruhe in the Department of Art History and Media Theory, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2017 with a thesis on Hans Sedlmayr. In 2018, she received a postdoctoral scholarship funded by the MArburg University Research Academy (MARA) at the Institute of Media Studies at Philipps-Universität Marburg. She completed a double degree in art history at the University of Vienna and tapestry at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Current research includes the media history of art history, history and theory of photography, and surveying practices in the Early Modern period.