Reconciling Art And Technology

This book examines two venerable cultures, art and technology, and uses the young "interdiscipline" of cognitive history combined with case studies of both ancient and modern artifacts to explore, and unveil, some of the bridges by which this reconciliation of two seemingly distant and oppositional cultures can be effected. Art and technology are commonly regarded as oppositional. While both are concerned with made things – artifacts – and both have their origins in pre-literate antiquity, the primary purposes they are intended for are quite distinct: the artifacts of technology serve utilitarian purposes while those of art serve affective needs. This opposition between art and technology, notably argued by such scholars as Lewis Mumford and George Kubler is challenged in this book. For, when we consider art and technology as creative phenomena, then many significant, interesting, and often subtle commonalities emerge whereby a reconciliation – a unity – of these two great cultures seems possible. This book utilizes case studies of both ancient and modern artifacts – ranging from the Nataraja sculpture of ancient India, a great astronomical clock of ancient China, and Japanese Samurai swordmaking, through Gothic cathedrals and Renaissance paintings of Europe to English Elizabethan machinery to the French Impressionists to modernist concrete structures and paintings in both East and West. This book will be of interest to students and professional scholars interested in the histories of art and technology, cultural history, and creativity studies.

"This book examines two venerable cultures, art and technology, and uses the young 'interdiscipline' of cognitive history combined with case studies of both ancient and modern artifacts to explore, and unveil, some of the bridges by which this reconciliation of two seemingly distant and oppositional cultures can be affected. Art and technology are commonly regarded as oppositional. For, while both are concerned with made things - artifacts - and both have their origins in pre-literate antiquity, the primary purposes they are intended for are quite distinct: the artifacts of technology serve utilitarian purposes while those of art serve affective needs. This opposition between art and technology, notably argued by such scholars as Lewis Mumford and George Kubler is challenged in this book. For, when we consider art and technology as creative phenomena, then many significant, interesting and often subtle commonalities emerge whereby a reconciliation - a unity - of these two great cultures seems possible. This book utilises case studies of both ancient and modern artifacts - ranging from the Nataraja sculpture of ancient India, a great astronomical clock of ancient China and Japanese Samurai swordmaking, through Gothic cathedrals and Renaissance paintings of Europe to English Elizabethan machinery to the French Impressionists to modernist concrete structures and paintings in both East and West. This book will be of interest to students and professional scholars interested in the histories of art and technology, cultural history, and creativity studies"--

Reconciling Art and Mothering contributes a chorus of new voices to the burgeoning body of scholarship on art and the maternal and, for the first time, focuses exclusively on maternal representations and experiences within visual art throughout the world. This innovative essay collection joins the voices of practicing artists with those of art historians, acknowledging the fluidity of those categories. The twenty-five essays of Reconciling Art and Mothering are grouped into two sections, the first written by art historians and the second by artists. Art historians reflect on the work of artists addressing motherhood-including Marguerite G?rd, Chana Orloff, and Ren?Cox-from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Contributions by contemporary artist-mothers, such as Gail Rebhan, Denise Ferris, and Myrel Chernick, point to the influence of past generations of artist-mothers, to the inspiration found in the work of maternally minded literary and cultural theorists, and to attempts to broaden definitions of maternity. Working against a hegemonic construction of motherhood, the contributors discuss complex and diverse feminist mothering experiences, from maternal ambivalence to queer mothering to quests for self-fulfillment. The essays address mothering experiences around the globe, with contributors hailing from North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Since 1900, the connections between art and technology with nature have become increasingly inextricable. Through a selection of innovative readings by international scholars, this book presents the first investigation of the intersections between art, technology and nature in post-medieval times. Transdisciplinary in approach, this volume?s 14 essays explore art, technology and nature?s shifting constellations that are discernible at the micro level and as part of a larger chronological pattern. Included are subjects ranging from Renaissance wooden dolls, science in the Italian art academies, and artisanal epistemologies in the followers of Leonardo, to Surrealism and its precursors in Mannerist grotesques and the Wunderkammer, eighteenth-century plant printing, the climate and its artistic presentations from Constable to Olafur Eliasson, and the hermeneutics of bioart. In their comprehensive introduction, editors Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam and Jacob Wamberg trace the Kantian heritage of radically separating art and technology, and inserting both at a distance to nature, suggesting this was a transient chapter in history. Thus, they argue, the present renegotiation between art, technology and nature is reminiscent of the ancient and medieval periods, in which art and technology were categorized as aspects of a common area of cultivated products and their methods (the Latin ars, the Greek techne), an area moreover supposed to imitate the creative forces of nature.

Whereas much has been written on the subject of art, the literature on the figure of the artist has been relatively scant. There are certainly countless biographies as well as essays dedicated to particular aspects of art - for example, the relationship between artists and their patrons - but there is no comprehensive text that puts together the pieces of the puzzle showing how the figure of the artist changed over the millennia. An Artist’s Story of Artists is an attempt to make good this lacuna by retracing the long and often fragmented path of the artist, from the Palaeolithic until this morning, more or less. During this journey, artists assumed and shed many guises. They were magicians, priests, legends, slaves, salaried workers, entrepreneurs, inventors, lunatics, revolutionaries, scientists, patrons and much else besides. They experimented with techniques and ideas, always aiming to find new ways to make art, and overcoming the boundaries determined by society, as well as those established by themselves. Highlights of this story are the complex relationships artists have always had with writing and literature, philosophy, technology, politics, religion and criticism, and the weighty stigma on manual work that for 5,000 years subdued them as they were regarded as halfwits who were good with their hands. This substantial work is divided into five phases, five great periods that witnessed the radical ways in which artists changed as they fought and lost battles among themselves and with society, and the ups and downs they experienced from being revered shamans reduced to reviled labourers, later raised to geniuses and then turned into doomed and damned artists. This book examines the role played by optical instruments, the reasons behind the origins of exhibitions, the paradoxes of art education, the clichés affecting artists, and the influences and interferences that have made them what they are today. The book finally examine

The London architectural firm Wilkinson Eyre Architects, founded in 1983, has been drawing attention since the 1990s with its wealth of innovative and imaginative designs – notably its spectacular and structurally ambitious bridges. The best-known and most highly acclaimed are the Gateshead Millennium Bridge (2001) and the Floral Street Bridge (2003). The firm has won many prizes, including the RIBA Stirling Prize twice. It has also demonstrated the increasingly international scope of its activities by entering the competitions for the Guangzhou West Tower in China and the Tensegrity Bridge in Washington DC, USA. This book offers detailed documentation of some 15 structures and projects, with special attention paid to the context of each design. The projects presented include the Stirling Prize-winning Magna Centre in Rotherham, UK; the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, UK; the Guangzhou West Tower in China; and the Gatwick Airbridge, UK, among others.

Bringing together leading international practitioners and theorists in the field, ranging from the 1960s pioneers of participation to some of the major contemporary figures in the field, Architecture and Participation opens up the social and political aspects of our built environment, and the way that the eventual users may shape it. Divided into three sections, looking at the politics, histories and practices of participation, the book gives both a broad theoretical background and more direct examples of participation in practice. Respectively the book explores participation's broader context, outlining key themes and including work from some seminal European figures and shows examples of how leading practitioners have put their ideas into action. Illustrated throughout, the authors present to students, practitioners and policy makers an exploration of how a participative approach may lead to new spatial conditions, as well as to new types of architectural practices, and investigates the way that the user has been included in the design process.

Aiming to place design developments in their broader context, this text describes the history of design from its emergence as a separate discipline around 1750 to the present. Arranged chronologically, and with colour-coded pages for ease of reference, the book includes time-lines and designers' biographies, as well as feature spreads on notable designers and companies. There is also a detailed list of major design museums and collections.