Despite the focus of artistic research on multimedia, much of the dissemination of AR still takes place through spoken or written word. In this sense, it could prove useful, in the context of a project on methodologies of a practice or field, to examine the language used by its practitioners. Particularly, what interests me here are the concepts of “Image Schema” (Lakoff/Johnson) and “Bildfelder” (Image Fields, Weinrich).
The concept of “Image Fields” (Bildfelder), developed by Harald Weinrich, describes structured networks of metaphorical associations that organize the semantic and cognitive coherence of a discourse. Rather than understanding metaphors as isolated rhetorical ornaments, Weinrich conceptualizes them as elements embedded within larger relational constellations. One key aspect of analysing and understanding such metaphors is to avoid decontextualizing them. That is, in order to grasp this rhetorical device properly, extracting an isolated phrase is insufficient; the broader context from which it emerges must also be considered. This, according to Weinrich, further complicates the analysis of metaphorical propositions as rhetorical devices of meaning building. A metaphor thus derives its meaning not only from the immediate analogy it establishes, but from the broader semantic field to which it belongs.
This approach embeds itself in an important shift away from classical substitution theories of metaphor. In Weinrich’s framework, metaphors are not exceptional deviations from literal language, but participate in historically and socially stabilized systems of meaning. These systems structure how phenomena are perceived, articulated, and conceptualized within a culture or discipline. An image field is therefore not reducible to a single image or comparison, but constitutes a network of mutually reinforcing metaphorical relations.
Although Weinrich's work can be regarded as a precursor to later developments, it has remained widely ignored, and especially obscured by the later English-language developments of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Within musicological discourse, one of the few applications of the concept of image fields, is that by Philipp Störel. Störel argues that image fields can be understood as “socialized knowledge patterns,” that is, socially stabilized patterns of knowledge that structure disciplinary perception and communication. Certain image fields achieve what Störel describes as “technical theoretical status”, becoming so deeply embedded within a discipline that they begin to function as quasi-conceptual foundations. Recurrent metaphorical propositions in a disciplinary field build relations to each other, and, when consistent and coherent, one could speak of an “Image Field”. Following Störel, the relations between metaphors can be synchronic, diachronic, or text-internal. With text-internal metaphors, he refers to recurrent metaphors in any one text, that interact in order to construct a sort of metaphorical framework. Synchronic relations are those built between metaphorical frameworks or metaphors from different texts (or any other linguistic expression) in a specific temporal and cultural context. Diachronic relations are established through time, configuring the metaphorical framework or IMAGE FIELDS of a discipline’s tradition. In musicological discourse, examples include MUSIC AS SPATIAL CONSTRUCT (workarchitecture/tonal space), MUSIC AS LANGUAGE, and SOUND AS COLOR (chromatism, soundcolor/”Klangfarbe”). These metaphorical constellations do not merely decorate discourse; they organize how music itself becomes thinkable and describable within theoretical practice, and how parameters become formalized influencing musical practice and perception.
The concept of Image Fields relates George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s “Conceptual Metaphors”, which would later develop into the concept of “Image Schema”. Drawing on examples from everyday English discourse, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that human conceptual systems are fundamentally metaphorical. In Metaphors We Live By, they show how “conceptual metaphors” structure thought, perception, and communication, often operating implicitly and without conscious awareness. Grounded in bodily and social experience, these metaphors challenge literalist and objectivist models of meaning and knowledge by suggesting that cognition itself is shaped through metaphorical structures.
Lakoff and Johnson define metaphor as “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another,” a process often described as cross-domain mapping. Their theory departs from traditional views of metaphor by rejecting several foundational assumptions: that metaphor is merely a linguistic ornament rather than a conceptual operation; that it is based solely on pre-existing similarities; that concepts themselves are entirely literal; and that rational thought is independent of bodily and embodied experience. For Lakoff and Johnson, each of these assumptions obscures the cognitive significance of metaphor and reduces it to a secondary rhetorical device.
A key distinction in their work is between “conventional metaphors,” embedded in everyday language and cognition, and “creative” or “imaginative” metaphors, which generate new ways of understanding experience. While conventional metaphors reveal the extent to which embodied experience structures ordinary thought, creative metaphors actively reshape conceptual frameworks and open new interpretative possibilities. In this sense, metaphor is not only descriptive but also productive: it contributes to the formation of meaning, influences perception and action, and participates in the construction of reality itself.
Lakoff and Johnson’s theory, which has since received broad interdisciplinary support, together with Weinrich’s, provide a framework for understanding metaphor as a fundamental cognitive mechanism through which individuals organize, interpret, and make sense of their experience of the world.1
The concepts of “image fields” and “image schema”, thus, could prove highly valuable for the analysis of disciplinary discourse. Their particular relevance lies in its ability to reveal how metaphorical structures organize not only language, but also epistemic orientation. Especially in sound-based Artistic Research, where abstract auditory phenomena repeatedly require mediation through spatial, linguistic, material, or visual categories, the theory of image fields offers a powerful framework for understanding how knowledge becomes articulable and communicable. It is precisely this sort of survey and corresponding analysis what I seek to undertake with the contributions to IMAGE FIELDS.2
References
Assis, Paulo de, Paolo Giudici, and Orpheus Instituut, eds. 2017. The Dark Precursor: Deleuze and Artistic Research. Leuven (Belgium): Leuven University Press.
Enders, Bernd, Jürgen Oberschmidt, and Gerhard Schmitt, eds. 2013. Die Metapher Als ‘Medium’ Des Musikverstehens: Wissenschaftliches Symposium, 17. Juni - 19. Juni 2011, Universität Osnabrück. Osnabrück: Electronic Publishing Osnabrück.
Giudici, Paolo. 2025. Aberrant Nuptials: Deleuze and Artistic Research 2. eds. Paolo Giudici and Paulo de Assis. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schreiber, Ewa. 2022. ‘Metaphors of Sound. Cognitive Aspects in the Theories of Pierre Schaeffer, R. Murray Schafer and Gérard Grisey’. GMTH Proceedings: 467–79. doi: 10.31751/p.89.
Spitzer, Michael. 2015. Metaphor and Musical Thought. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago.
Störel, Thomas. 1997. Metaphorik Im Fach: Bildfelder in Der Musikwissenschaftlichen Kommunikation. Tübingen: G. Narr.
Thorau, Christian. 2025. Vom Klang Zur Metapher: Perspektiven Der Musikalischen Analyse: Mit Einer Nachbemerkung Zur Zweiten Auflage. 2., ergänzte Auflage 2025. Baden-Baden: Georg Olms Verlag, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.
Zbikowski, Lawrence Michael. 2002. Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 1In the musicological field, there is an extensive research corpus on the relationship between music and metaphors (Zbikowski 2002; Spitzer 2004; Schreiber 2008, 2016; Thorau 2012; Enders/Oberschmidt/Schmitt 2013). While existing studies have addressed metaphor in relation to musical analysis, perception, and reception, comparatively less attention has been given to the role of metaphor in compositional and creative processes, particularly regarding how artists articulate and develop their conceptual frameworks. Furthermore, there is also little research as to the epistemic relevance of this filter and influence it may have on our everyday experience, as one could do with Lakoff and Johnson.
- 2One such example within Artistic Research could be that of the rhizome, derived from the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Concepts such as multiplicity, non-linearity, decentralization, and interconnectedness have increasingly shaped the language through which artistic processes and epistemic practices are articulated. Within Artistic Research discourse, the rhizome frequently functions not merely as a metaphorical comparison, but as a structuring conceptual model for understanding distributed forms of knowledge production, processuality, and relational thinking. This tendency can be observed, for example, in the Orpheus Institute publications The Dark Precursor and Aberrant Nuptials, which explore the relationship between Deleuzian philosophy and Artistic Research practices. Whether the rhizome as image field or schema finds resonance in the submissions to JAR, remains to be seen.
