The Material Imagination Workshop, Stanford University
An upcoming seminar series at Stanford University, called The Material Imagination: Sound, Space, and Consciousness, features a commissioned work by Mel Day (see above poster). The Material Imagination is an ongoing workshop coordinated by faculty members Bissera V. Pentcheva (Department of Art & Art History) and Alexander Nemerov (Department of Art & Art History)Select FridaysOctober-May4:00-6:00 PMStanford UniversityCummings Art BuildingRoom 103Map & DirectionsFALLOctober 11 | Jonathan BergerImagined Sound, Virtual Space and Human ConsciousnessNovember 22 | Jesse RodinExperiencing Renaissance PolyphonyDecember 6 | Niall AtkinsonThe Acoustic Art of City-Building in Renaissance ItalyWINTERJanuary 10 | Alexander NemerovAcoustic Shadows: Macbeth and the Civil WarFebruary 7 | Justin TackettSound, Cities, Technology in 19th-Century American LiteratureMarch 14 | Nicholas JenkinsUnearthly Voices: Poetry's NonsoundSPRINGApril 4 | Margot FasslerArchitecture and Music: Hildegard's Allegorized Setting for the Ordo VirtutumApril 11 | Charles HirschkindThe Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counter PublicsMay 2 | Thomas Blom HansenConcerning City Sounds and Senses
ABOUT
Bridging medieval and modern, the Material Imagination Workshop explores sound as an embodied experience. Invited speakers as well as Stanford faculty and graduate students will present their research and center the discussion on short pre-circulated papers. Sound assumes an immaterial quality that allows it to permeate bounded space. It appears just as soon as it disappears, weaving through barriers in both unpredictable and controllable ways. Through archeoacoustics sound of past civilizations can be reconstructed and provide an auditory aspect of these lost worlds as for instance Byzantine chant. How can we productively bring studies on prosody in poetry to shed light on the "wet acoustics" of sacred space? How could a study of urbanism encapsulate sound as an integral feature of the city? How can humanists engage the physics of acoustics or neuroscience in order to explore the role of sound in activating memory and the imagination? How does history, culture, and geography influence different ways of hearing from one community to the next?
FORMAT
Discussion will center on short pre-circulated papers posted on this website before the individual sessions. These written statements will explore the connection between sound and the spaces and materials that modify it and inflect it with culturally specific meaning and experience. Topics include medival chant and mystic experience in Hildegard von Bingen, architecture of Renaissance Italy, war reportage from Iraq, the soundscape of the Islamic city, Cairo, and South Asia.Meetings are scheduled on select Fridays in Cummings Art Building, room 103. Dinner will be served during each session.
FACULTY COORDINATORS
Bissera V. PentchevaDepartment of Art & Art HistoryAlexander NemerovDepartment of Art & Art History
CO-SPONSORS
Division of International, Comparative and Area StudiesArt and Art History DepartmentStanford Arts Institute
CONTACT
Jennifer HsiehGraduate Student Coordinatormaterial.imagination@