Anyone talking about pictures by necessity refers to those using pictures. It is therefore essentially the competence of using pictures that has to be considered. Such competence is not common among higher developed mammals, at least as far as we know today. This fact raises the question whether and to what extent that ability has to be conceived as a strictly anthropological one. In an interdisciplinary approach, the first international conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary Image Science (GiB) titled ›Origins of Pictures‹ has taken a closer look at the role of pictures for the conditio humana.

The primary goal of the conference was to present empirical findings of the origins of picture uses, considering in particular research in paleo-anthropology, archeology, cultural anthropology, and developmental psychology. Furthermore, those findings were to be related to philosophical considerations concerning the conditions of the conceptual formation of picture competence.