II. 2002 – 2008 Arbeitswelt in den USA - Tylle, H. D.

iences that would otherwise be inaccessible to us. So the depiction of labor is not simply a matter
of illustrating what is supposedly known or has been said already. Rather, it can produce insights
which cannot be expressed in words.
Yet because of its communicative specifics, such a depiction can also be dangerous. It is quite
capable of deluding us, deceiving us that something exists and lulling us into esthetic and sensory
complacency. Like in a scholarly debate, the only way to avoid this is through the discursive process
of an iconographic controversy.
(2) Another important feature of artistic production compared with a scholarly approach is that artists
are freer than scholars in the design of their work. After all, progress in knowledge means confronting
common everyday viewpoints, limitations, horizons and perspectives with alternative interpretations
and explanations that will broaden and improve our range of action. In everyday life it may be sufficient
to believe that the sun rises in the morning and that it sets in the evening, but the alternative
scholarly description has significantly expanded our options for action. Progress in knowledge therefore
means challenging our deeply ingrained patterns of perception and explanations while offering
alternatives that may lead to reflection and perhaps even to changes in behavior.
Artists are ideally suited for this task: They can combine and design objects and facts, they can put
them into unusual contexts, adopt perspectives that may appear absurd, attract attention through
the use of seemingly strange colors, and they can have the poetic license to add whatever seems
appropriate to them. To put it more professionally, artists are free to contextualize their subjects.
They can express subjective sentiments while scholars generally have to refrain from doing so. They
can formulate utopian visions that reveal shortcomings and problems. Moreover, they can relate
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