The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) invites participation in the Fifth Biennial Art History Symposium, “Palimpsest: The Layered Object.”
Feb. 28–March 1, 2014.

EXTENDED DEADLINE: 15th of June 2013

The media, techniques and materials of art-making comprise layers of knowledge and bear traces of the physical and intellectual act of creation. The art object changes as successive layers build-up over time or strip away material and evidence. Both tangible and virtual paint covers canvas, earth subsumes artifacts, weather and environmental effects leave traces, and new layers of thought replace older conventions. A process of creation similarly yields destruction as new covers old, possibly masking or revealing the underlying trace. “Palimpsest: The Layered Object” will explore the relations between aesthetic inscriptions, erasures and the historical conditions of their media, whether drawing, film, incunabula, painting, print, sculpture, textiles, architecture or urban space. This symposium considers the “layered object,” or “palimpsest” as a model for artistic production. We seek to mine history, excavate knowledge and find meaning in the residue between layers of creation.

In the late 20th century, philosophy provided tools to investigate media and technology as conceptually constituting our present condition. Today, where do we stand within our rapidly accelerating post-media condition? Technologies and their application in art history provide us with tools to generate a profound understanding of the monumental and the ephemeral, the real and the imagined, the single object and the archive. We, therefore, invite interdisciplinary contributions that merge art history with other fields and seek topics that explore the beginning of inscription as well as the remains of its erasure. “Palimpsest: The Layered Object” is unbounded temporally, geographically and culturally.

Potential topics may include:

- Interstices between signs within media
- Philosophical traces underpinning conceptual, analytical or methodological strategies
- Encapsulated knowledge in different forms of narration
- Fluidity of processes underlying media
- Cultural mappings and archival strategies
- Pentimenti and layered surfaces in painting
- Indexicality and "the trace" in photography
- The layered city landscape
- The media of the scientific examination of art

Please submit an abstract (300 words maximum) and a résumé, including complete contact information, to arthsymposiumscad.edu

Deadline for abstract submission: Wednesday, June 15, 2013
Notification of acceptance: Sunday, Sept. 1, 2013 via email

Symposium language is English.