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The field of audiovisual media has changed dramatically over the last two decades. Until recently, the amount of audiovisual technology was still manageable, channels of distribution were few, the places where moving images were consumed were for the most part limited to cinemas, the domestic television set, and galleries or art museums. Also, both the producers and the audiences of such content clearly identified as human beings. Those days are over. The digitization of image production and distribution have proved a massive disruption to the traditional ecology of the moving image. This publication maps new contributors and new conditions for creative work in discussions of animal spectators, child producers, all-encompassing gazes and the marketing interests of big corporations, the origins of new formats and new practices in the widening sphere of audiovisual media.

For quite a long time medieval works were not always recognized as art. They found their way into useums only with resistance, at first even as proof of their inferiority. Creating suitable presentations of these works remains a challenge for curators and collections to this day. This analysis of presentation methods, in the context of exhibitions, traces how museums have treated the Middle Ages from the early modern period to the present, and investigates a change in perception towards medieval imagery. It provides insights into the tasks and claims of the current museum culture, our concepts of art, and our ideas about the right way of dealing with history.