On behalf of the Digital Art History Society, we invite you to submit a proposal for the society’s sponsored session at the 2024 College Art Association of America’s Annual Conference, February 14-17, 2024, in Chicago:

Blanks No More?
Digital Art History and the Unknown

Chairs: Max Koss & Lynn Rother, Provenance Lab, Leuphana University Lüneburg
Deadline: August 30, 2023

Absences and gaps in the surviving historical record have been a driving force for art historians to engage in archival research, trying to fill in what is missing. After all, if the historical record is a function of chance and happenstance, how trustworthy can deductions from such a porous, unreliable archive be?

With the advent of digital tools in the humanities—and art history specifically—scholars have begun to critically reexamine the chase for missing bits of knowledge. Facing the reality that much missing knowledge cannot ultimately be recovered, they have reoriented their attention to make the gaps themselves speak.

Digital tools and methods can help infer meaning through technology-driven contextualization of the lacunae in the information at our disposal. Complicating the issue further, Joanna Sassoon has noted that the “absence of records can, in itself, be seen as evidence, and there comes a point in the research process where it may be more telling to explain erasure than continue searching for records.”

This panel invites submissions from any art historical field, offering theoretical reflections and practical solutions to address gaps in knowledge through digital tools and methods. Are all gaps equal? Can they be put in the service of an active, reconstructive engagement with what we do not know? And if so, how? Ranging from textual gaps to fragmentary artworks and ruinous architectural structures, the panel aims to showcase the conceptual and methodological diversity of digital approaches to the known unknowns and possibly even unknown unknowns of art history.

Submit your proposal to max.kossleuphana.de and include a CV, your presentation title and abstract (max. 250 words), as well as a statement on why your proposal is a good fit for this panel (max. 100 words). You are also welcome to include images, though be mindful to submit them in an easily accessible format. Early submissions are highly encouraged, and we cannot consider proposals received after Wednesday, August 30, 2023. Should your proposal be selected, CAA requires that you become an active CAA member upon acceptance.

We look forward to receiving your proposal!

Contact:
Max Koss, PhD
Research Associate
Provenance Lab, Leuphana University Lüneburg
max.kossleuphana.de