Visual knowledge and visual literacy have become pressing concerns across a variety of academic disciplines and areas of creative production. These concerns are shaped by fluid definitions of “visual knowledge” and the multiple ways in which it manifests. Many forms of visual knowledge have capabilities that are not shared by language, and can be produced, mediated, and distributed by a number of different objects, tools, media, and technologies. This symposium brings together graduate students, faculty, artists and curators from a wide variety of disciplines in order to broaden understandings of intellectual and creative work. We envision the event as an exploratory lab, comprising scholarly and creative projects that engage with this subject in varied ways.

Friday, October 3rd, 2014

2:00

  • Opening remarks

2:15-4:15 - Panel 1: Knowledge Production | Moderated by Dr. Paolo Palmieri, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

  • Matthew Allen (History of Architecture), Harvard University, "Equivocating Diagrams: The many epistemic virtues in C.H. Waddington's images and arguments"
  • Vivian Appler, (Theatre), University of Pittsburgh, "To Trust or Not to Trust: Telescopic (mis)Information on the Early Modern Stage"
  • Catherine Falls, (Art History and Information Science), University of Toronto, "The Thick Black Line: Image and Objectivity in Roman Ondak's ‘Measuring the Universe’"
  • Chloe Hansen, (Communication), University of Pittsburgh, "Visual Agnotology: Visual Production and Maintenance of Ignorance"

5:00 - 6:00

  • Visit to Finnbogi Petursson exhibition, SECOND/SECOND at Wood Street Galleries in downtown Pittsburgh and Q&A with curator Murray Horne

6:30 - 7:30 - "Screening the Ethnographic Sensorium" at Wood Street Galleries Annex, 937 Liberty. Reception and a program of media and performance curated by Ben Ogrodnik, History of Art and Architecture and Film Studies, University of Pittsburgh

Saturday, October 4th, 2014

9:00 - 11:00 - Panel 2: The Politics of Space | Moderator TBA

  • Jeff Richmond-Moll, (Art History), University of Delaware, "'Divine Truths Photographed Upon the Soul': The Holy Land through the Stereoscope"
  • Patricia Guiley, (Art History), University of Utah, "The World, as it is Written on the Wall"
  • Caroline Pirri, (English), Rutgers University, "'Which long their longings urged their eyes to see':
  • Jocelyn Monahan (Information Science) and Jeffrey Curran, University of Pittsburgh, “Instant Interferences”

11:30 - 1:00 - Panel 3: Multimedia and (Re)mediation | Moderated by Dr. Mark Paterson, Communication, University of Pittsburgh

  • Laura Giudici, (Art History/Art and Science), University of Fribourg, "The representation of intersex bodies in Klonaris/Thomadaki's multimedia practice" ?
  • Juliet Sperling, (Art History), University of Pennsylvania, "Stripped Bare: Dissecting Wax, Print, and Paper Bodies in Antebellum America"
  • Alicia Puglionese, (History of Medicine), Johns Hopkins University, "Drawings from the Other side"

1:00 - 2:00 - Lunch Break

2:00 - 3:00 - Keynote Presentation: Dr. Patrick Jagoda, Professor of English, University of Chicago, "Network Aesthetics (or: How to See Anything When Everything is Interconnected)"

3:30 - 4:30 - Curatorial Roundtable: "Curatorial Practice as Production of Visual & Spatial Knowledge" | A discussion with Dan Byers, Richard Armstrong curator of contemporary art, Carnegie Museum of Art; Dr. Alison Langmead, Director, Visual Media Workshop, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, and Assistant Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Cynthia Morton, Associate Curator of Botany, Carnegie Museum of Natural History; and Dr. Terry Smith, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory, University of Pittsburgh. Moderated by Nicole Scalissi, History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh.

5:00 - 6:00 - Keynote Presentation: Dr. Simone Osthoff, Professor of Art and Critical Studies, Pennsylvania State University/Playing the Archive, "The 1959 Neoconcrete Manifesto: Data Mining, Visualization, and Sonic Immersion"

Sunday, October 5th, 2014

10:00 - 12:00 - Breakout sessions (Registration required. For more information, visit www.debatingvisualknowledge.com)

  • Paper Workshops led by Dr. Josh Ellenbogen, History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh (Location: School of Information Sciences, 3rd Floor)
  • Creativity & Academia Roundtable led by Jocelyn Monahan and Aisling Quigley, PhD Candidates, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh (Location: School of Information Sciences, 3rd Floor)
  • Curator's Tour of “Configuring Disciplines: Fragments of an Encyclopedia” at the University Art Gallery, Frick Fine Arts Building, University of Pittsburgh, led by Dr. Drew Armstrong, History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh

12:00 - 1:00 - Lunch Break

1:00 - 3:00 - Panel 4: Tooling the Visual | Moderated by Dr. Alison Langmead, History of Art and Architecture and School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh

  • Alexandra Provo (Library and Information Science), Pratt Institute, "Connoisseurship as Visual Knowledge: Surrogate Images in the work of Crow and Cavalcaselle, Giovanni Morelli, and Bernard Berenson"
  • Tim Fessenden, (Biology), University of Chicago, “Visualizing Cell Behavior in 3D: A Tour of Biology Reseach Praxis”
  • Ginger Elliot Smith, (Art History), Boston University, "Post-Studio Sublime: Southern California Art and Technology after Earthrise"
  • Dr. Christopher Warren, (English), and Dr. Raja Sooriamurthi, Ivy Chung, Sama Kanbour, Angela Qiu, and Chanamon Ratanalert, (Information Systems), Carnegie Mellon University, "Six Degrees of Francis Bacon: History, Networks, Knowledge"