6th Annual Graduate Symposium, Department of Art, University of Toronto

Experimental Cultures: Mergers of Art and Science

“All art should become science and all science art,” declared the German Romantic poet Friedrich Schlegel in one of his many philosophical fragments. Schlegel’s radical program of reform for the arts and sciences still has currency today. Art historians and other researchers are exploring the unique ways in which cultures of science and art intersect. Illustrations in anatomical atlases or manuals of natural history, for instance, hover somewhere ambivalently between the two. Even in the work of canonical artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, what is art and what is scientific inquiry cannot be definitively distinguished. These junctions appear not only in the concerns of artists, but also in those of scientists. Developments in neuroscience are transforming our understanding of the experience and creation of art. Innovative technologies enable us to approach art and material culture, ancient and modern, from new angles. We invite proposals of graduate research across time and space that consider how science and technology have influenced the subjects of art, material culture, the practices of art-making, and aesthetic experience. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

- Applications of science and technology to art history and material culture
- How art and science have together generated new theoretical approaches
- Exchange between artists, anatomists, medical practitioners, and other scientists
- Neuroarthistory and its applications
- The use of psychology, physiognomy, or phrenology in portraiture
- Intersections between landscape painting or land art and the natural sciences

Please email abstracts of no more than 500 words for 20-minute papers, in addition to a short CV to gusta.symposiumgmail.com by November 15, 2011. Successful candidates will be contacted by December 1, 2011.

Organized by the Graduate Union of the Students of Art, University of Toronto
http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/gradart/activities.html