Materials of Image Transmission & Transfer, session at Bibliography Among the Disciplines Conference, Philadelphia, PA, October 12–15, 2017
If the transmission of images, both geographic and between different media, has become a common theme of recent scholarly investigation, the physical and technical nitty-gritty of these operations has received far less attention. More often, scholars approach transmission and transfer from their indices: a copy that cleaves to an original, or an object made in one part of the world and found in another. But precisely how were images sent far and wide? And what were the technical practices by which one image became another, or was used to create another type of object altogether? In proposing answers to these questions, this panel aims to grapple with transmission and transfer not only in the abstract frame of “circulation,” but also, and more fundamentally, as material processes.
The panel thereby seeks to methodologically highlight the kinds of material evidence that might be used to reconstruct the physical processes of transmission and transfer. What kinds of access can residue (smudges, stains, additions) and erasure (pinholes, missing pieces, cutaways) give us to the artist’s, engraver’s, or metal smith’s studio? What are the vestiges of a scribe’s method of copying or the publisher’s practice of forgery or re-edition? How does wear, or even preventative reinforcement, divulge the particularities of an object’s journey through the world?
Proposals are welcomed that focus on images which traveled, at least originally, by means of paper or parchment supports—prints, book illustrations, manuscript illuminations, among others—in any geography and period.
Session Organizer
Aaron Hyman (University of California, Berkeley)
Bibliography Among the Disciplines, a four-day international conference, will bring together scholarly professionals poised to address current problems pertaining to the study of textual artifacts that cross scholarly, pedagogical, professional, and curatorial domains. The conference will explore theories and methods common to the object-oriented disciplines, such as anthropology and archaeology, but new to bibliography. The program aims to promote focused cross-disciplinary exchange and future scholarly collaborations. Bibliography Among the Disciplines is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and organized by the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School.