The first panel of the DVK Symposium is currently underway in the Carnegie Museum of Art Theater, an attractive lecture space on the ground floor of the Museum. Although physically situated in an institution committed to the display and collection of fine art, the symposium promises to address visual knowledge in a variety of realms.
Colleen O'Reilly, a doctoral student at the History of Art and Architecture Department and an organizer of the event, introduced the symposium by addressing the topic of visual knowledge directly. Colleen emphasized that the aim of the symposium is by no means to determine a precise definition of visual knowledge, but rather to consider it as a "point of convergence," or a meeting point for interdisciplinary collaboration. Jocelyn Monahan, a doctoral student at the School of Information Sciences, reiterated that the process of organizing the symposium itself demonstrated the elusiveness of a precise definition of visual knowledge. Indeed, its lack of a definition is what makes it such an ideal topic for an event such as this.
The panelists presented provocative arguments on various topics, including evolutionary and functional biology, data visualization, and agnotology, and I could not capture them all here. However, here are some of the main sticking points:
- Through an analysis of CH Waddington's illustrations, and his epigenetic landscape in particular (1942), Matthew Allen (History of Architecture, Harvard University), discussed the tension that exists between concepts and scientific illustrations. Allen spoke about the challenge presented by scientific images that are intentionally obscure, and the ways in which these images actually impede knowledge transmission. Yet, Allen also alluded to the strange power of the seemingly nonsensical image. The most popular depiction of the epigenetic landscape is characterized by sharp, confident lines that are perhaps suggestive (or attempting to suggest) of the authenticity of the scientific ideas encased within (see image above). Allen suggests that this interpretation fits with the twentieth century notion of developmental biology. As mentioned above, I cannot attempt to capture the entirety of Allen's talk here, so hope you will forgive my somewhat abrupt summary.
- Catherine Falls (Art History and Information Science, University of Toronto), provided an absorbing narrative about Roman Ondák's "Measuring the Universe," eliciting comparisons between the interactive artwork and the genre of data visualization, as a whole. The human traces represented in Ondàk's work, manifested in dashes, names, and dates inscribed in black marker on a white gallery wall, accrete to produce what Falls identifies as a "norm": the thick black line. The installation suggests the primacy of gathering knowledge about ourselves as a group of people rather than of ourselves as individuals.
More to come....