“Seeing Double.” An Archaeology of Double Projection from Wölfflin and Warburg to Godard and Bressane
No. 24 | 2026-10-09Author(s)
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Giovanni FestaIndependent researcherORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1449-2530
Abstract
This text has two objectives: to outline a brief history of double projection—which we will also refer to as the “double image” or “two-image”—and to examine how it became a crucial mechanism for a specific way of “thinking” about and “editing” images. The origins of this unique form of thinking through images are both technical and theoretical: at the beginning of the 20th century, Heinrich Wölfflin used a new type of projector capable of displaying two images simultaneously to explain his theory of styles, based on dichotomies. Wölfflin is followed by Aby Warburg, who would use the same projection technique to present his concept of survival and, later, as a key mechanism in the montages of his Atlas Mnemosyne.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Giovanni Festa
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