INTRO – the intertextual, interpictorial, and intermedial relations ontology

INTRO is an ontology for the fields of literary studies, art studies and intermediality studies for the representation of intertextual, interpictorial, and intermedial relations. It enables the presentation and categorization of diverse features of both textual and pictorial origin and their linking. Its subject area includes the scholarly discourse on these texts/images, interrelations, and features, insofar as research results are also understood as texts with features and relations. (For more information, see "Description").

INTRO on GitHub: https://github.com/BOberreither/INTRO

Special Thanks to: Ingo Börner, Laura Untner

INTRO is an ontology for the fields of literary studies, art studies and intermediality studies for the representation of intertextual, interpictorial, and intermedial relations. It enables the presentation and categorization of diverse features of both textual and pictorial origin and their linking. Its subject area includes the scholarly discourse on these texts/images, interrelations, and features, insofar as research results are also understood as texts with features and relations.
The notions of 'text' and 'image' in this ontology are largely derived from their use in the ontologies INTRO is an extension of. For definitions, see the passages in the documentations of CIDOC crm resp. LRM on the relevant classes (these being CIDOC crm's E73 Information Object, and E90 Symbolic Object resp. LRM's F1 Work, F2 Expression, F3 Manifestation). Depending on the theoretical framework, the notion of 'text' can be understood very broadly: It can include images, it can cover large corpora of texts otherwise understood as distinct entities. INTRO makes use of these possibilities in the regard of including the notion of 'Architexts' as introduced by Gérard Genette as sets of texts (and in this case images) seen as a unit (by reference to certain features, timeframes, semantic features etc., see INT6 Architext).
One differentiation INTRO is built on is the one between a 'passage' and a 'segment'. These two concepts are parallel to LRM's F2 Expression/CIDOC CRM's E36 Visual Item on the one hand and LRM's F3 Manifestation on the other hand, in the way that the former (Expression/Visual Item, Passage) embody a more abstract concept of the text/image and of its parts, while the latter (Manifestation, Segment) refer to the form a text/an image and its parts take when they are manifested in a specific way or version, e.g. at the stage of a certain published edition. Examples include a passage from Goethe's "Faust", Act V, vs. a passage from Act V. of a specific edition of Goethe's "Faust". Only the latter one is a citable entity in the sense that it has a place and a date of publication, a publisher, and a page number attached to it; the former can be manifested in many of the latter.
These differentiations suffice for an outside view of expressions / manifestations and their parts. When confronted with expression form and contents and the like – here combined in the notion of 'feature' –, another level comes into play. A basic orientation can be obtained from Edmund Husserl's notion of image, respectively his separation of the image ("Bild") from its carrier ("Bildding") and its content ("Bildsujet") as discussed in "Phantasie und Bildbewusstsein" (1904/1905; parallel and clarified nomenclature can be found e.g. in Wolfram Pichler's and Ralph Ubl's "Bildtheorie zur Einführung", 2014, where the three notions are called – my translation – image vehicle, image object, and image referent; for further examples of this trias in image theory and semiotics, see Simon 2009, p. 41). While Husserl's carrier combines the F4 Item and the F3 Manifestation of an image (which, with regard to paintings, can easily fall together – as painting is, now following Nelson Goodman, an 'autographic' art) and the image itself corresponds to the F2 Expression resp. CIDOC CRM's E36 Visual Item, all the features an image can actualize belong in his third category ("Bildsujet"). This third category – the question of what is 'in' an image or text, what can be 'seen on' resp. 'read out' of it, etc. – is provided by the interaction of two classes of INTRO: The INT4 Feature and the INT2 Actualization of Feature. The 'feature' is the more abstract concept separate from the specific text/image. One and the same feature (e.g. chiaroscuro painting, a hero character, a plotline, etc.) can be identified in multiple texts/images, while the specific actualization of the feature is bound to the respective text/image. An image can have one or many carriers, and many images can refer to the same real-life entity. (Rooting a single image in different versions of, e.g., a work of art, or in a series of works of art however touches upon a grey area between the terms "image" and "sujet").
This trias of an expression's manifestation, the expression itself, and its 'contents' (as features) is again expanded by the question of referentiality. Ralf Simon (2009, p. 48f.) introduces a fourth instance to the original trias, differentiating between the carrier, the image, the image object and the referent, the latter two dividing what was formerly one entity referred to as, e. g., sujet. This states a difference between a (usually:) semantic feature) and a possible, but not necessary reference to an external entity. This modelling is inside INTRO's scope: The ontology makes use of a very basic notion of referentiality with regard to images as well as texts: Actualized features can themselves actualize the feature of being a reference to a real-world entity, by chaining an INT18 Reference entity to, e. g., an INT9 Semantic Feature. Note that this construction offers a quite simple answer to the question if the reference to a fictitious entity - e.g. a unicorn - is possible resp. a reference at all: The unicorn is, in this case, a semantic feature.)
Throughout the ontology, the term 'relation' is to be understood in the broadest sense. The ontology instantiates relations between (textual, pictorial) entities or features thereof; while it does not pose any restrictions on the notion of 'relation', it provides subclasses for expressing the medial aspect (intertextual, interpictorial, intermedial) as well as classes for further specification. The ontology also provides the opportunity to link these specifications (as well as many other of its concepts) to the scholarly discourse they are the subject of.
This way, INTRO covers a large portion of scholarly practice; some of the subclasses of INT9 Semantic Feature in combination with object properties linking these features also allow - to some degree - for the reconstruction of the argumentative structure of, e.g., research papers (as they allow for the reconstruction of the contents of literary works).

References:
Trond Aalberg, Pat Riva, Maja Žumer (2024, maintainers), LRMOO. Object-oriented definition and mapping from the IFLA Library Reference Model. Version 1.0. URL: https://cidoc-crm.org/lrmoo/sites/default/files/LRMoo_V1.0.pdf
Chryssoula Bekiari et al. (eds., 2024), Definition of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model. Version 7.1.3. URL: https://cidoc-crm.org/sites/default/files/cidoc_crm_version_7.1.3.pdf
Nelson Goodman (1976), Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. 2nd edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Edmund Husserl (1980 [1904/1905]), Phantasie und Bildbewusstsein. In: Eduard Marbach (ed.), Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwärtigungen. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1898-1925). Den Haag, Boston u. London: Martinus Nijhoff (= Husserliana. Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 23), pp. 1-169.
Wolfram Pichler, Ralph Ubl (2014), Bildtheorie zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius.
Ralf Simon (2009), Der poetische Text als Bildkritik. München: Wilhelm Fink.