Editorial

The call launched through img-journal was an invitation to reflect, in theoretical terms or related to the results of specific research experiences, upon the broad conceptual space that lies between the true and the false. As historians we were (and are) particularly interested in the gradation and the scale of values that separates the two terms: we endorse our interpretative hypotheses based on the findings supplied by documents and sources – of diverse kinds – and the sense we assign to our research depends on their reliability or the awareness of their mendacity. With this in mind, we decided to focus our interest, within the visual dimension undertaken by the respondents to the call, less on what is false and/or falsified (and its theoretical classification) and more on the stress placed on the study and categorisation of the reproduction and replica (that today can easily reach an infinite number of examples), which digital technologies make simple and cheap. This is a disciplinary area of great interest, from an ontological and gnoseological perspective, because it allows us, on the one hand, to assess the contribution of both the “identical reproduction”, also dimensional, of different objects (from works of art to the typical artifacts of scientific research), and their re-materialisation, that is to say their digital and vectorial reproduction, to the lines of investigation and, on the other, to determine whether they open up new directions.