Continuous Page.
Scrolls and Scrolling from Papyrus to Hypertext

Scrolls encompass in one sweep the oldest and the most contemporary ideas about images and image-making. On the one hand, some of the most enduring artefacts of the ancient world adopt the scroll form, evoking long-standing associations with the Classical tradition, Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures, theatrical oration, and the word of the law. Yet today, scrolling is also the single most common interaction between people and their digital media: fingers routinely swipe across trackpads and touch-screens through reams of infinite hypertext. In between these two extremes too, we find a plethora of different artists and craftsmen turning and returning to the medium, from medieval medical treatises and Japanese emakimono to 19th-century wallpaper or Jack Kerouac’s continuously-typewritten draft of 'On The Road'. This one-day workshop considers the idea of the continuous page from a variety of different historical viewpoints, offering a diverse set of responses to scroll-based objects both old and new.

PROGRAMME

09.30-10.00: Registration

10.00-10.10: Jack Hartnell (The Courtauld), Welcome

10.10-11.10: SESSION 1 – REACTION

Rachel Warriner (University College, Cork): ‘This fragile thing – with bite’: Nancy Spero’s feminist scrolls

Luca Bochicchio (University of Genoa): Scrolling the Ephemeral. The revenge of endless paintings in the post-World War II European avant-gardes

11.10 - 11.40: TEA/COFFEE BREAK (provided)

11.40 - 12.40: SESSION 2 – TIME

Yasmine Amaratunga (The Courtauld): The Post-Internet Scroll

Kristopher Kersey (Smithsonian/University of Richmond): The Paginated Scroll Discontinuity, Chronology, and Memory in the Eyeless Sutras

12.40 - 13.40: LUNCH (provided)

13.40 - 14.40: SESSION 3 – PERFORMANCE

Pika Ghosh (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill): Pleasures of Scrolling. Hand-scrolls, Temple Walls, Graphic Novels and Oil Paintings

Eva Michel (Albertina, Vienna): Scrolling the Emperor’s Life and Triumph

14:40 - 14:50: COMFORT BREAK

14.50 - 15.50: SESSION 4 – JOURNEYS

Michael Hrebeniak (Magdalene College, Cambridge): ‘Literally one damned thing after another with no salvation or cease’: Jack Kerouac's On the Road as Textual Performance

Stacy Boldrick (Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh): Speaking Scrolls, Death and Remembering

15.50 - 16.20: TEA/COFFEE BREAK (provided)

16.20 - 17.20: SESSION 5 – DIGITAL

Katherine Hindley (Yale University): Prayer Rolls, Birth Girdles, and Indulgences. Scrolls in Medieval Medicine and Religion

Helen Douglas (artist/ Camberwell College of Art) and Beth Williamson (independent scholar): From hand scroll to iPad app

17:20 - 17:50: Closing Discussion

17:50 onwards: RECEPTION

Ticket/entry details: Open to all, free admission, but advance booking required by 21 June,
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/continuous-page-scrolls-and-scrolling-from-papyrus-to-hypertext-tickets-17187047923

Please contact researchforumcourtauld.ac.uk if you have any queries.