Representations in Action: Visual Practices in Art and Science

Representations constitute a crucial common link between scientific and artistic visual practices. Integrating the history, philosophy and sociology of scientific and artistic representations, this one-day workshop will explore how representations function first and foremost as experimental practices and as guidelines to practical judgements in science and in the visual arts.

The aim of the workshop is to explore the role of representations “in action” -- that is, their function as practices that partake of a process of inquiry. Drawing on historical and contemporary case-studies, the contributions to the workshop will present a range of arguments that will place visual practices in science and the visual arts, along with their commonalities and tensions, at the centre of current epistemological and historiographical debates on the dynamics of scientific observation and visualization, the quest for objectivity and the evaluative practices that implicitly inform the construction and use of representations.

Speakers:

Mauricio Suárez
Department of Philosophy, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
"The Modelling Attitude in 19th Century Physics"

Annamaria Carusi
Institute of Public Health, University of Copenhagen
"Errors, lies, fictions, and other (mis) representations"

Antony Hudek
Institute of Archaeology, University College London
"When exhibitions become science fairs: episodes in a history of conceptual art"

Kelley Wilder
Photographic History Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester
"Exhibiting Scientific Applied Photography"

Chiara Ambrosio, Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London
"Reconnecting Representations and Practices: Lessons from Art"

Keynote Lecture
Lorraine Daston
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
"The Physiognomy of the Sky and the Limits of Representation"

The workshop is followed by a reception and art pop-up at the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy

Room Location: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/estates/roombooking/building-location/?id=090

Local Organizer: Chiara Ambrosio ([email protected]), Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London

The conference is free and open to the public, but places are limited. To register please contact Alasdair Tatam at: [email protected].

Further information and abstracts at: