In an increasingly image-conscious society, and one in which children are visually literate from a very early age, the learned journals stand out as one of the very few forms of publication on which historical illustration has yet to leave its mark. Except for art historians, pictures do not count as a source, nor is there any call for seminars and lectures to be turned into slide shows.

Raphael Samuel (1994: 38)

 

There is a need for a sustained focus on visual material as a primary source in research and to further develop the methods of visual research. Images are far more than just illustrations. It is further important that researchers involved in visual-based research get acquainted with visual technologies, since researching visual material often calls for a practical approach. Digital media based methods of presenting research findings can be a valuable option when visual material is involved in research. In a hypermedia format, written text and visuals can easily work together and inform each other. Hypermedia opens new opportunities for visual research as well as for communicating the results of such research. It is also of great importance that researchers in visual studies make use of the many, often surprisingly unknown and unexplored, visual archives. This paper offers one example of the recovery of a visual legacy largely ignored by previous researchers.

 

The case study material for this paper is unique. It is based on The Andrée Expedition , a Swedish polar expedition that, in a Jules Vernien style, tried to cross the frozen North Polar Sea by balloon in 1897. Its scientific mission was to explore the geography of the north Polar Regions using aerial photography. However, when the balloon was forced down to the ice the goal of the expedition quickly turned into a struggle for survival for the three expedition members: Salomon August Andrée (1854-1897), an engineer and the leader of the expedition, Nils Strindberg (1872-1897), a scientist, photographer and navigator, and Knut Frænkel (1870-1897), also an engineer. The three men struggled for over two months on the ice until they finally died in 1897 at Kvitøya in Svalbard. Thirty-three years later, in August of 1930, the remains of the three men were unexpectedly found along with large parts of their equipment, diaries, notebooks and exposed photographic film. They had documented their entire ordeal using photography and written text. It soon became clear that seven copper cylinders containing film were found at Kvitøya - four of the rolls had been exposed. When the expedition camera's roll-cassette was found there was one roll of film in it that had been exposed. Docent John Hertzberg at The Royal Technical University (KTH) in Stockholm treated the five exposed rolls of film. Out of 240 possible exposures (based on the fact that each roll could hold up to 48 exposures), Hertzberg managed to save 93.

 

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