Anne Koskinen will defend her doctoral dissertation Zeitigung und Bilderzeugung – Philosophische Konzepte der Sinnstiftung für eine multimodale Werkästhetik in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Helsinki, on 2 September 2026 at 13:00

Zeitigung und Bilderzeugung

Anne Koskinen, Meisterschülerin, MA, MA, will defend the doctoral dissertation entitled Zeitigung und Bilderzeugung – Philosophische Konzepte der Sinnstiftung für eine multimodale Werkästhetik in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Helsinki, on 2 September 2026 at 13:00. The public examination will take place at the following address: Metsätalo, sali 6 (B317), Unioninkatu 40.

Professor Dr Bernadette Collenberg-Plotnikov, University of Münster, will serve as the opponent, and Professor Dr Arto Haapala as the custos.

On the event of pictorial meaning-making at the intersection of philosophy and philology

The ability to create images is nowadays a core competency in interpersonal communication. It is considered an essential skill in professional and personal contexts alike. The importance of studying how pictorial meaning is constructed is highlighted by the fact that creating images is an integral part of almost everyone’s daily life. From job applications to social media posts and dating profiles, it is important to understand how to create and incorporate images into communicative—and often linguistic—contexts. While previous research on images has predominantly focused on viewers’ perspectives of finished images, Koskinen’s doctoral dissertation in aesthetics examines the temporal event of mere material becoming a picture a from the creator’s perspective. 

In her German-language study, Koskinen develops a conceptual framework based on hermeneutic-phenomenological philosophy suitable for analysing the event of image formation within the continuum of everyday life and art. The study delves into the Heideggerian philosophy and analyses of works of art by the Romanian-German philosopher Walter Biemel (1918–2025), which have received little attention to date. The study also draws on the German-language field of image studies (Bildwissenschaft), which is not well known in Finland. As the study examines the connection between thought and language—a hallmark of philosophy—it reveals how specific linguistic characteristics influence the definition of concepts, resulting in significant variations in the framing of questions in languages such as German and English. When dealing with terminology that draws on dialectal expressions in particular, the need to supplement philosophical reflections with a philological approach becomes apparent. By utilising linguistic resources to inform a microscopic reading, the study clarifies controversial concepts and translations.

As image-making technologies evolve, Koskinen’s research opens up new perspectives for philosophically grounded analyses of various ways of creating images, including those that are multimodal from the outset. Text-to-image generation, for example, involves artificial intelligence generating an image based on written instructions, known as prompts. Unlike research on finished images, the multimodal aesthetics of image-making outlined here deal with images that either do not yet exist or are only just coming into being. In other words, the focus is on unfinished images and images that have yet to be created. In her analysis of these images, Koskinen draws on the concept of Zeitigung—a term that is difficult to translate—and adapts it for the study of images that are just coming into being. By formulating the concepts of das noch nicht Gezeitigte (‘what has not yet been brought into being’) and das Zu-Zeitigende (‘what is to be brought into being’), she addresses the central challenge for picture-makers of knowing what to do next. While the study’s conceptual framework invites questioning of an anthropocentric perspective, metaphysical enquiries into ways of being in the world and concrete analyses of the formation of pictorial meaning are inextricably linked.

This is a general summary. The scientific abstract can be found on Helda.

Anne Koskinen, Meisterschülerin, MA, MA, qualified subject teacher, began her studies in Germany at the University of Freiburg, majoring in German studies. She graduated from the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts with a major in painting and printmaking and completed her Meisterschüler advanced studies (Meisterschüler*innenstudium) there. She earned a Master of Arts in Fine Arts from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now part of Aalto University). At the University of Helsinki, Koskinen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in the humanities, which included certification to be a German teacher, as well as a Master of Arts degree with a major in Germanic philology. She has served in various roles at the University of Art and Design, including professor of visual culture and fine arts and dean. In the early 2000s, she founded a Department of Visual Culture at the University of Art and Design in Pori, collaborating with fields such as technology, business, social sciences, and landscape studies at the Pori University Consortium. While working on her dissertation, Koskinen remained active as a visual artist. A second retrospective of her work is due to open at the Turku Art Museum on 5 February 2027. Her German-language dissertation addresses questions that have arisen in the context of image-making in the continuum of everyday life and art, as well as reflections on the spheres of influence of different languages and cultures. She also aims to introduce a German-language perspective to image studies in Finland, challenging the dominance of English-language research.

More information here: University of Helsinki.