Diagrams: Materials and Methods
Friday, May 6, 2022
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Simplified, schematic, abstract. Diagrammatic representation offers an attenuated impression of the physical world. Yet diagrams are themselves physical artifacts—manufactured objects with a material history that has informed their production, use, and interpretation. Bringing together scholars and artists whose work engages the material history of the diagram, this panel explores the tension between abstraction and materiality at the heart of every diagrammatic practice. A series of object-focused case studies from the early modern period to the present will ground a collective discussion about 1) the shifting material, visual, and semiotic qualities of diagrams drawn from differing contexts over time and 2) available theoretical approaches for understanding diagrams and the epistemologies they capture.
Panelists: Elizabeth Bacon Eager, Assistant Professor of Art History, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University Mimi Gellman, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Culture and Community at Emily Carr University of Art and Design Nydia Pineda de Ávila, Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Science Studies Program at UC San Diego Trevor Stark, Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History, University of Calgary Moderated by Natilee Harren, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Houston School of Art Advance.
Registration is required to attend. Registrants will receive the connection link via email.
This online panel discussion is sponsored by Rare Book School’s Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB) and the University of Houston School of Art’s Program in Art History.
Mimi Gellman, Invisible Landscapes (detail), 2017, conté on Japanese Obonai paper, 63.5 x 48.3 cm.
- Location
- Virtual
- Cost
- Free
- Contact
- Natilee Harren
noharren@uh.edu