Picturing Science, Producing Art


Book Description

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.




Picturing Science, Producing Art


Book Description

Between the disciplines of art history and the history of science lies a growing field of inquiry into what science and art share as both image-making and knowledge-producing activities. The contributors of Picturing Science, Producing Art occupy this intermediate zone to analyze both scientific and aesthetic representations, utilizing disciplinary perspectives that range from art history to sociology, history and philosophy of science to gender studies, cultural history to the philosophy of mind. Organized in five sites--Styles, The Body, Seeing Wonders, Objectivity/Subjectivity, and Cultures of Vision--their topics extend from Cinquecento theories of female reproduction to the technologies of cloning, from medieval depictions of the stigmata to electrical metaphors for sex, from astronomical drawings to radioencephalography, from Phoenician griffons carved in ivory to factories cast in concrete. The internationally renowned contributors go beyond both science wars and culture wars by exploring substantive links between systems of visual representation and knowledge in science and art. Contributors include Svetlana Alpers, Jonathan Crary, Arnold Davidson, Carlo Ginzburg, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, and Simon Schaffer.




Image and Logic


Book Description

Engages with the impact of modern technology on experimental physicists. This study reveals how the increasing scale and complexity of apparatus has distanced physicists from the very science which drew them into experimenting, and has fragmented microphysics into different technical traditions.




Drawing as a Way of Knowing in Art and Science


Book Description

In recent history, the arts and sciences have often been considered opposing fields of study, but a growing trend in drawing research is beginning to bridge this divide. Gemma Anderson’s Drawing as a Way of Knowing in Art and Science introduces tested ways in which drawing as a research practice can enhance morphological insight, specifically within the natural sciences, mathematics and art. Inspired and informed by collaboration with contemporary scientists and Goethe’s studies of morphology, as well as the work of artist Paul Klee, this book presents drawing as a means of developing and disseminating knowledge, and of understanding and engaging with the diversity of natural and theoretical forms, such as animal, vegetable, mineral and four dimensional shapes. Anderson shows that drawing can offer a means of scientific discovery and can be integral to the creation of new knowledge in science as well as in the arts.




Biologically-Inspired Computing for the Arts: Scientific Data through Graphics


Book Description

"This book comprises a collection of authors' individual approaches to the relationship between nature, science, and art created with the use of computers, discussing issues related to the use of visual language in communication about biologically-inspired scientific data, visual literacy in science, and application of practitioner's approach"--Provided by publisher.




Victorian Science and Imagery


Book Description

The nineteenth century was a period of science and imagery: when scientific theories and discoveries challenged longstanding boundaries between animal, plant, and human, and when art and visual culture produced new notions about the place of the human in the natural world. Just as scientists relied on graphic representation to conceptualize their ideas, artists moved seamlessly between scientific debate and creative expression to support or contradict popular scientific theories—such as Darwin’s theory of evolution and sexual selection—deliberately drawing on concepts in ways that allowed them to refute popular claims or disrupt conventional knowledges. Focusing on the close kinship between the arts and sciences during the Victorian period, the art historians contributing to this volume reveal the unique ways in which nineteenth-century British and American visual culture participated in making science, and in which science informed art at a crucial moment in the history of the development of the modern world. Together, they explore topics in geology, meteorology, medicine, anatomy, evolution, and zoology, as well as a range of media from photography to oil painting. They remind us that science and art are not tightly compartmentalized, separate influences. Rather, these are fields that share forms, manifest as waves, layers, lines, or geometries; that invest in the idea of the evolution of form; and that generate surprisingly kindred responses, such as pain, pleasure, empathy, and sympathy.




Transmission Image


Book Description

Transmission Image: Visual Translation and Cultural Agency offers a challenging survey of the burgeoning debate about visual culture in a global perspective. Bringing together scholarly perspectives on places ranging from China and India to Nigeria, and from the Philippines and Syria to Germany, this volume proposes a truly global outlook on the study of visual culture in both a contemporary and an historical perspective. Addressing key theoretical issues, the contributors cover a wide range of art forms and visual media, highlighting the complex cultural codification of images and its impact on the study of visual culture and globalization.




The Form of Becoming


Book Description

The Form of Becoming offers an innovative understanding of the emergence around 1800 of the science of embryology and a new notion of development, one based on the epistemology of rhythm. It argues that between 1760 and 1830, the concept of rhythm became crucial to many fields of knowledge, including the study of life and living processes. The book juxtaposes the history of rhythm in music theory, literary theory, and philosophy with the concurrent turn in biology to understanding the living world in terms of rhythmic patterns, rhythmic movement, and rhythmic representations. Common to all these fields was their view of rhythm as a means of organizing time — and of ordering the development of organisms. Janina Wellmann, a historian of science, has written the first systematic study of visualization in embryology. Embryological development circa 1800 was imagined through the pictorial technique of the series, still prevalent in the field today. Tracing the origins of the developmental series back to seventeenth-century instructional graphics for military maneuvers, dance, and craft work, The Form of Becoming reveals the constitutive role of rhythm and movement in the visualization of developing life.




The Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities and Art History


Book Description

The Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities and Art History offers a broad survey of cutting-edge intersections between digital technologies and the study of art history, museum practices, and cultural heritage. The volume focuses not only on new computational tools that have been developed for the study of artworks and their histories but also debates the disciplinary opportunities and challenges that have emerged in response to the use of digital resources and methodologies. Chapters cover a wide range of technical and conceptual themes that define the current state of the field and outline strategies for future development. This book offers a timely perspective on trans-disciplinary developments that are reshaping art historical research, conservation, and teaching. This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, historical theory, method and historiography, and research methods in education.




Information Arts


Book Description

An introduction to the work and ideas of artists who use—and even influence—science and technology. A new breed of contemporary artist engages science and technology—not just to adopt the vocabulary and gizmos, but to explore and comment on the content, agendas, and possibilities. Indeed, proposes Stephen Wilson, the role of the artist is not only to interpret and to spread scientific knowledge, but to be an active partner in determining the direction of research. Years ago, C. P. Snow wrote about the "two cultures" of science and the humanities; these developments may finally help to change the outlook of those who view science and technology as separate from the general culture. In this rich compendium, Wilson offers the first comprehensive survey of international artists who incorporate concepts and research from mathematics, the physical sciences, biology, kinetics, telecommunications, and experimental digital systems such as artificial intelligence and ubiquitous computing. In addition to visual documentation and statements by the artists, Wilson examines relevant art-theoretical writings and explores emerging scientific and technological research likely to be culturally significant in the future. He also provides lists of resources including organizations, publications, conferences, museums, research centers, and Web sites.