Totentanz: Aby Warburg and Digital Art History

Workshop

  • Data: 17.01.2018
  • Ora: 12:00 - 14:00
  • Relatore: Leonardo Impett
  • Luogo: Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rom
  • Ospite: Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte
  • Contatto: paulinyi@biblhertz.it
This talk presents recent attempts to 'operationalise' Warburg's concept of Pathosformel - that is to say, to transform it into an algorithm. This process implies not only a conversion into computer language, but also an explicit reading of the concept itself, whose unforgiving nature forces us to consider each component of the concept in detail.

Using this operationalisation, we offer a new perspective on the Bilderatlas: one which suggests the clear morphological existence of Pathosformeln, but more interestingly, the impossibility of devising a 'taxonomy of pathos'.

Leonardo Impett is a PhD candidate in the digital humanities under Franco Moretti and Sabine Süsstrunk at the EPFL, Switzerland. His research focuses on digital art history: particularly on Aby Warburg's Bilderatlas, the Pathosformel, and depicted gesture. He previously read engineering at Cambridge, where he was a member of the Rainbow Group under Alan Blackwell. He is a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).

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