Artifact Artifice

Is it possible to trace the footprints of the historical Sokrates in Athens? Was there really an individual named Romulus, and if so, when did he found Rome? Is the tomb beneath the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica home to the apostle Peter? To answer these questions, we need both dirt and words—that is, archaeology and history. Bringing the two fields into conversation, Artifact and Artifice offers an exciting excursion into the relationship between ancient history and archaeology and reveals the possibilities and limitations of using archaeological evidence in writing about the past. Jonathan M. Hall employs a series of well-known cases to investigate how historians may ignore or minimize material evidence that contributes to our knowledge of antiquity unless it correlates with information gleaned from texts. Dismantling the myth that archaeological evidence cannot impart information on its own, he illuminates the methodological and political principles at stake in using such evidence and describes how the disciplines of history and classical archaeology may be enlisted to work together. He also provides a brief sketch of how the discipline of classical archaeology evolved and considers its present and future role in historical approaches to antiquity. Written in clear prose and packed with maps, photos, and drawings, Artifact and Artifice will be an essential book for undergraduates in the humanities.

"As familiar and widely appreciated works of modern technology, bridges are a good place to study the relationship between the aesthetic and the technical. Fully engaged technical design is at once aesthetic and structural. In the best work (the best design, the most well made), the look and feel of a device (its aesthetic, perceptual interface) is as important a part of the design problem as its mechanism (the interface of parts and systems). We have no idea how to make something that is merely efficient, a rational instrument blindly indifferent to how it appears. No engineer can design such a thing and none has ever been built."—from Artifice and Design In an intriguing book about the aesthetics of technological objects and the relationship between technical and artistic accomplishment, Barry Allen develops the philosophical implications of a series of interrelated concepts-knowledge, artifact, design, tool, art, and technology-and uses them to explore parallel questions about artistry in technology and technics in art. This may be seen at the heart of Artifice and Design in Allen's discussion of seven bridges: he focuses at length on two New York bridges—the Hell Gate Bridge and the Bayonne Bridge—and makes use of original sources for insight into the designers' ideas about the aesthetic dimensions of their work. Allen starts from the conviction that art and technology must be treated together, as two aspects of a common, technical human nature. The topics covered in Artifice and Design are wide-ranging and interdisciplinary, drawing from evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and the history and anthropology of art and technology. The book concludes that it is a mistake to think of art as something subjective, or as an arbitrary social representation, and of Technology as an instrumental form of purposive rationality. "By segregating art and technology," Allen writes, "we divide ourselves against ourselves, casting up self-made obstacles to the ingenuity of art and technology."

Focusing on central Mexico and the Andes (colonial New Spain and Peru), the contributors deepen scholarly knowledge of colonial history and literature, emphasizing the different ways people became and lived their lives as "indios" in this new study.

Is it possible to trace the footprints of the historical Sokrates in Athens? Was there really an individual named Romulus, and if so, when did he found Rome? Is the tomb beneath the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica home to the apostle Peter? To answer these questions, we need both dirt and words—that is, archaeology and history. Bringing the two fields into conversation, Artifact and Artifice offers an exciting excursion into the relationship between ancient history and archaeology and reveals the possibilities and limitations of using archaeological evidence in writing about the past. Jonathan M. Hall employs a series of well-known cases to investigate how historians may ignore or minimize material evidence that contributes to our knowledge of antiquity unless it correlates with information gleaned from texts. Dismantling the myth that archaeological evidence cannot impart information on its own, he illuminates the methodological and political principles at stake in using such evidence and describes how the disciplines of history and classical archaeology may be enlisted to work together. He also provides a brief sketch of how the discipline of classical archaeology evolved and considers its present and future role in historical approaches to antiquity. Written in clear prose and packed with maps, photos, and drawings, Artifact and Artifice will be an essential book for undergraduates in the humanities.

Works by Prosek and others are juxtaposed with natural objects in an illuminating interrogation of the artificial boundaries we create between art and nature Award-winning artist, writer, and naturalist James Prosek (b. 1975) has gained a worldwide following for his deep connection with the natural world, which serves as the basis for his art and numerous popular books. In this cross-disciplinary catalogue, Prosek poses the question, What is art and what is artifact—and to what extent do these distinctions matter? Drawing on the collections of the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Prosek places man- and nature-made objects on equal footing aesthetically, suggesting that the distinction between them is not as vast as we may believe. In more than 150 full-color plates, objects such as a bird’s nest, dinosaur head, and cuneiform tablet are juxtaposed with Asian handscrolls, an African headdress, modern masterpieces, and more. Artists featured include Albrecht Dürer, Helen Frankenthaler, Vincent van Gogh, Barbara Hepworth, Pablo Picasso, and Jackson Pollack, as well as Prosek himself, whose works depict fish, birds, and endangered wildlife. Also included are an incisive essay by Edith Devaney and texts by Prosek that explore the magnificent productions of our wondrous interconnected world.

First book from the new World of Writing series Interdisciplinary, drawing on the fields of linguistics, psychology, history, sociology, philosophy, anthropology and history of art Illustrated with black and white plates of works by Wyndham Lewis and David Jones, including the painted frontispiece to T.S. Eliott's A Symposium for his Seventieth Birthday

Since the first edition was published, new technologies have come up, especially in the area of convergence of Computing and Communications, accompanied by a lot of new technical terms. This second expanded and updated edition has been worked out to cope with this situation. The number of entries has been incremented by 35%. With about 159,000 entries, this dictionary offers a valuable guide to navigate through the entanglement of German and English terminology. The lexicographic concept (indication of the subject field for every term, short definitions, references to synonyms, antonyms, general and derivative terms) has been maintained, as well as the tabular layout.

Disclosure: This description was prompted and edited by Bill Ritchie, in Microsoft’s current Copilot, an AI text generator for the second volume of Bill H. Ritchie's two-part autobiography. We traverse the years from 1991 to 2023. Ritchie, a trailblazer in the art world continues his life story. In the first book he told how he embarked on a remarkable odyssey that defied convention and reshaped the art, craft, and design of fine art printmaking. At the tender age of 24, Ritchie secured a groundbreaking position—the youngest ever—in the vibrant city of Seattle. His appointment as a teaching artist in fine art printmaking at the University of Washington marked the beginning of a transformative chapter. But this was no ordinary academic journey; Ritchie's innovative spirit would soon set him apart, a maverick in academe. The traditional classroom was too confining for Ritchie. Driven by a hunger for exploration, he wove technology into his art courses in the 1980s. Bill Ritchie's experiments disrupted the staid printmaking department and shocked the UW School of Art. Forced to leave the stifling ivory towers, by the 1990s the emergence of electronic arts opened with the Internet and would extend the boundaries of printmaking. Ritchie's vision blurred the lines between historic creativity and cutting-edge technology, birthing a new era dating back to the Paleolithic era when printmaking was invented. Ritchie pushed the envelope. Printmaking was no longer confined to ink and paper; it now danced with video, performance, computer graphics, and games. His colleagues, patrons, and former students watched in awe, wondering at the audacity of his moves. Telling all, Ritchie weaves rich, detailed tales. In his printed books he placed thousands of pictures to enliven the narrative, capturing moments shared with those who left their marks on his journey. QR codes link videos and backstories, bridging epochs—from prehistoric cave paintings to the digital age. The echoes of ancient handprints resonate, showing that explication transcends time if replicated creatively. In a world illuminated and echoed by electronic media, Ritchie poses a poignant question: "Is there hope?" As climate change and global stressors threaten the future, his words resonate. Whether through brushstrokes or those fleeting, elusive pixels and here in eBook form and auxiliary Read Aloud option, Ritchie's legacy endures—a beacon for students of all ages, urging them to embrace creativity, defy boundaries, and find hope in the interplay of art, technology, and the human imagination.