“The general system of the sciences and the arts is a sort of labyrinth,
a tortuous road which the intellect enters
without quite knowing what direction to take…”
Jean d'Alembert (1751)
a tortuous road which the intellect enters
without quite knowing what direction to take…”
Jean d'Alembert (1751)
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Diagrammatology and Romantic Objectivism:
Diagrams are a fundamental mode of visual communication and one of the oldest and most varied types of images made by humans. From the portable stone-age maps of hunter gatherers to the interactive big-data maps of our genome and the universe, diagrams and diagramming have always been found at the cutting edge of new knowledge production, visualization, storage and communication. As a result, diagrams are ubiquitous, transcultural and pan-historic, however diagrammatology, the academic study of diagrams, is a relatively new field of enquiry dating back approximately two decades.
Diagrams and diagram making has been an integral part of the practices of some of the most important and influential artists of the modern and contemporary periods. Indeed, over the last one hundred years an entire field of diagrammatic fine art has arisen that contains some of the most ambitious and challenging artworks of our time. From Picasso’s ‘high analytic’ cubism, to the diagram-based practices of Paul Klee, Sol LeWitt, Joseph Beuys and Marcel Duchamp, as well as his prolific and diagram obsessed protégés Arakawa and Gins.
Such artists have employed a variety of creative strategies that appropriate, exaggerate and subvert the unique properties of diagrams. As a result their artworks and methodologies appear to embody the detached intellectual rigor of objective scientific investigation, and signal a lack of preoccupation with subjective self-expression and the auto-referential individualism of 20th century modernist art. I refer to this approach and style as ‘Romantic-Objectivism’.
Diagrams and diagram making has been an integral part of the practices of some of the most important and influential artists of the modern and contemporary periods. Indeed, over the last one hundred years an entire field of diagrammatic fine art has arisen that contains some of the most ambitious and challenging artworks of our time. From Picasso’s ‘high analytic’ cubism, to the diagram-based practices of Paul Klee, Sol LeWitt, Joseph Beuys and Marcel Duchamp, as well as his prolific and diagram obsessed protégés Arakawa and Gins.
Such artists have employed a variety of creative strategies that appropriate, exaggerate and subvert the unique properties of diagrams. As a result their artworks and methodologies appear to embody the detached intellectual rigor of objective scientific investigation, and signal a lack of preoccupation with subjective self-expression and the auto-referential individualism of 20th century modernist art. I refer to this approach and style as ‘Romantic-Objectivism’.
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ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0056-5506
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ACADEMIA: https://hkbu.academia.edu/MichaelWhittle
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❉ Diagrams in art: celebrating the failure of the inexpressive image
Conference paper @ Association for Art History, 2022
Session: Unseen Science and the Failure of the Visual
Abstract:
As a diagram researcher with a dual background in biochemistry and fine art, this paper examines diagram-based drawings from my own artistic practice that reflect upon the balance between the success and failure of scientific and mathematical diagrams to depict authoritative truths about the world. I propose that once positioned in a fine art context, these so-called inexpressive images take on new qualities and act in ways unintended by their creators. As art objects, the human narrative behind a diagrams creation and use becomes significant, and its philosophical status called in to question. In what ways do diagrams produce the reality they merely purport to describe? How do readers or users of diagrams project their own ideas and intentions on to these images? How can we call in to account the underlying data of diagrams that exist at the very limits of what can be studied, measured, depicted or imagined?
The drawing ‘Pair of Prime Knots’ is based upon an error in Charles Newton Little's 19th century table of unique prime knots, the mathematical knot-theorists equivalent to the chemist’s periodic table. The error went unnoticed for over a century until the mistaken duplication was discovered by Kenneth Perko in 1973, after which the knots became known as the Perko pair.
‘Model for the Origins of Human Language’ was generated using the artist’s own 3-D computer models of a two-dimensional diagram published in Nature magazine in 2003. The original study presented the controversial adaptation of mathematical techniques from molecular genetics to examine the origins and evolution of human languages - a move that came to be regarded as one of the most radical and exciting recent developments in the field of Philology.
‘Model for first causes’ contrasts a physics diagram of the origins of the universe against neuron diagrams from mathematical biology. In their 1997 paper, physicists J. Richard Gott III and Li-Xin Li posed the question ‘Do the laws of physics prevent the Universe from being its own mother?’ and diagrammed a self-contained circular loop of space-time capable of generating multiple alternative universes. Within the drawing, this branching cornucopia-like structure is portrayed above an algorithmically generated diagram of neuron growth in the human brain, created by Kaoru Sugimura to explore the basic structural units that underlie the brains’ ability to question not only its own origins, but the origins of the universe itself.
As a diagram researcher with a dual background in biochemistry and fine art, this paper examines diagram-based drawings from my own artistic practice that reflect upon the balance between the success and failure of scientific and mathematical diagrams to depict authoritative truths about the world. I propose that once positioned in a fine art context, these so-called inexpressive images take on new qualities and act in ways unintended by their creators. As art objects, the human narrative behind a diagrams creation and use becomes significant, and its philosophical status called in to question. In what ways do diagrams produce the reality they merely purport to describe? How do readers or users of diagrams project their own ideas and intentions on to these images? How can we call in to account the underlying data of diagrams that exist at the very limits of what can be studied, measured, depicted or imagined?
The drawing ‘Pair of Prime Knots’ is based upon an error in Charles Newton Little's 19th century table of unique prime knots, the mathematical knot-theorists equivalent to the chemist’s periodic table. The error went unnoticed for over a century until the mistaken duplication was discovered by Kenneth Perko in 1973, after which the knots became known as the Perko pair.
‘Model for the Origins of Human Language’ was generated using the artist’s own 3-D computer models of a two-dimensional diagram published in Nature magazine in 2003. The original study presented the controversial adaptation of mathematical techniques from molecular genetics to examine the origins and evolution of human languages - a move that came to be regarded as one of the most radical and exciting recent developments in the field of Philology.
‘Model for first causes’ contrasts a physics diagram of the origins of the universe against neuron diagrams from mathematical biology. In their 1997 paper, physicists J. Richard Gott III and Li-Xin Li posed the question ‘Do the laws of physics prevent the Universe from being its own mother?’ and diagrammed a self-contained circular loop of space-time capable of generating multiple alternative universes. Within the drawing, this branching cornucopia-like structure is portrayed above an algorithmically generated diagram of neuron growth in the human brain, created by Kaoru Sugimura to explore the basic structural units that underlie the brains’ ability to question not only its own origins, but the origins of the universe itself.
Model for the origins of human language - glazed plane (Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of language-tree divergence times),
2012, Ink and watercolour on paper, 142 x 104 cm (55.9" x 40.9")
❉ Romantic-Objectivism: Developing a diagrammatic poetics of science
Published Paper in Journal of Visual Art Practice, Volume 20, Issue 03, pg. 283 - 298, Taylor and Francis, UK , 2021
(Special Edition: Demands of the diagram: creative abduction in artists’ research and practice, Edited by Claire Scanlon)
DOI: 10.1080/14702029.2021.1951584
Keywords: diagrammatology; encyclopedistics; romantic-objectivism; art and science; drawing; modelling; romantic encyclopaedia; Novalis
Abstract:
This essay discusses how Diagrammatic modes of representation are a distinct subset of images that coevolved with the scientific project to visually embody key ideals from the philosophy of science. In making diagrammatic art, artists have found various means to appropriate, exaggerate and subvert this set of characteristics unique to the diagram as part of their processes of creation and production. This is in an approach that I refer to as Romantic Objectivism. As a practicing artist with a background in Biomedicine, my drawing and sculptural praxes are presented as an ongoing project to develop a visual poetics of science beyond its purely factual and functional modes, in the spirit of the Romantic-period German scientist, philosopher and poet Novalis, and his recently rediscovered, unfinished project, the Romantic Encyclopedia.
This essay discusses how Diagrammatic modes of representation are a distinct subset of images that coevolved with the scientific project to visually embody key ideals from the philosophy of science. In making diagrammatic art, artists have found various means to appropriate, exaggerate and subvert this set of characteristics unique to the diagram as part of their processes of creation and production. This is in an approach that I refer to as Romantic Objectivism. As a practicing artist with a background in Biomedicine, my drawing and sculptural praxes are presented as an ongoing project to develop a visual poetics of science beyond its purely factual and functional modes, in the spirit of the Romantic-period German scientist, philosopher and poet Novalis, and his recently rediscovered, unfinished project, the Romantic Encyclopedia.
❉ Portraits of Thought: Transfiguring the diagrams of science
Published Paper in: Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice, Volume 5, Number 2, pg. 311 - 317, Intellect Books, UK, 2020
DOI: 10.1386/drtp_00040_7
Keywords: drawing; modelling; visualization; art and science; diagrammatology; molecular-biology; evolutionary-biology; romantic-objectivism
Abstract:
The drawing and modelling of diagrammatic images provides unique aesthetic, semiotic and philosophical overlap between science and art. This project report considers the diagrammatic artwork ‘Model for the origins of movement’, which was created using a hybrid drawing process. The drawing is one of thirty new works which I presented during the solo exhibition ‘Portraits of Thought: diagrams in art and science’ at the Kyoto University Museum, between 2018 and 2019. This body of work is part of an ongoing project to ‘poeticize the sciences’, and to enter in to a dialogue with scientists and the nature of their research, and transfigure their data and diagrams by means of visual metaphor and poetic associations. In doing so, new creative connections can be drawn between not only art and science, but amongst the hyper-specialised and fragmented fields of the scientific project itself.
The drawing and modelling of diagrammatic images provides unique aesthetic, semiotic and philosophical overlap between science and art. This project report considers the diagrammatic artwork ‘Model for the origins of movement’, which was created using a hybrid drawing process. The drawing is one of thirty new works which I presented during the solo exhibition ‘Portraits of Thought: diagrams in art and science’ at the Kyoto University Museum, between 2018 and 2019. This body of work is part of an ongoing project to ‘poeticize the sciences’, and to enter in to a dialogue with scientists and the nature of their research, and transfigure their data and diagrams by means of visual metaphor and poetic associations. In doing so, new creative connections can be drawn between not only art and science, but amongst the hyper-specialised and fragmented fields of the scientific project itself.
Model for the origins of movement (Myosin and Actin molecular family trees as linked, punctured tori),
2017, Ink and watercolour on paper, 125 x 125 cm (49" x 49")
❉ Romantic Objectivism: Recontextualising diagrams from the life sciences in a contemporary fine art context
Conference Paper @ The US Consortium of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, 2021
Session: Circulation of Images in the Life Sciences
Abstract:
As a contemporary artist and diagram researcher with a background in biomedical science, this paper presents examples of drawings, sculptures and installations from my own artistic practice. These were developed directly from life science images re-presented in a fine art context. I call this approach Romantic Objectivism, as both a way to describe the adaption of objective visual imagery for artistic and poetic expression, and to reference the historical cultural divide between the Enlightenment and Romanticism.
A recent project titled ‘Perpetual Motion’ took as its theme two alternative understandings of movement through the lens of contemporary biology. I adapted human DNA Haplogroup maps to create a largescale mobile sculpture of global female genetic variation. The sculpture was suspended above a custom-made carpet, the design of which incorporated the distinctive triangular firing patterns of grid cells in the human entorhinal cortex. In this way, the symbolic markings on the carpet mirror the neuronal processes in the brains of the people moving across it. By putting these two very different notions of movement and location together, ‘Perpetual Motion’ suggests an alternative poetics of space and place, and provides a scientific snapshot of our endless wanderings as human individuals and as a species as a whole.
My most recent project involved designing a set of fictional blueprints and models for a fictional Martian colony, developed from atomic resolution diagrams of the secondary structure of the human Large Ribosomal Subunit (LSU). Ribosomes exist in every cell and their evolutionary origins, circa 4 billion years ago, remain imprinted within the different layers of their structure. These ancient biomolecules are of fundamental importance to all extant life, making its diagrammatic adaptation for a proposed extraterrestrial colony a highly symbolic, poetic gesture that connotes the spread of earth-based organic life out into the solar system.
Rather than promoting the work of specific research groups, or simply acting as tools for science communication, these art projects aim instead to reflect upon the nature of visual representations in science, and what happens when we remove the objective restraints which are placed upon them.
As a contemporary artist and diagram researcher with a background in biomedical science, this paper presents examples of drawings, sculptures and installations from my own artistic practice. These were developed directly from life science images re-presented in a fine art context. I call this approach Romantic Objectivism, as both a way to describe the adaption of objective visual imagery for artistic and poetic expression, and to reference the historical cultural divide between the Enlightenment and Romanticism.
A recent project titled ‘Perpetual Motion’ took as its theme two alternative understandings of movement through the lens of contemporary biology. I adapted human DNA Haplogroup maps to create a largescale mobile sculpture of global female genetic variation. The sculpture was suspended above a custom-made carpet, the design of which incorporated the distinctive triangular firing patterns of grid cells in the human entorhinal cortex. In this way, the symbolic markings on the carpet mirror the neuronal processes in the brains of the people moving across it. By putting these two very different notions of movement and location together, ‘Perpetual Motion’ suggests an alternative poetics of space and place, and provides a scientific snapshot of our endless wanderings as human individuals and as a species as a whole.
My most recent project involved designing a set of fictional blueprints and models for a fictional Martian colony, developed from atomic resolution diagrams of the secondary structure of the human Large Ribosomal Subunit (LSU). Ribosomes exist in every cell and their evolutionary origins, circa 4 billion years ago, remain imprinted within the different layers of their structure. These ancient biomolecules are of fundamental importance to all extant life, making its diagrammatic adaptation for a proposed extraterrestrial colony a highly symbolic, poetic gesture that connotes the spread of earth-based organic life out into the solar system.
Rather than promoting the work of specific research groups, or simply acting as tools for science communication, these art projects aim instead to reflect upon the nature of visual representations in science, and what happens when we remove the objective restraints which are placed upon them.
Noctis Labyrinthus (Labyrinth of the Night), 2021. Fictional plans for Martian city based on the structure of the human ribosome.
❉ Romantic Objectivism: Diagrammatic Thought in Contemporary Art
PhD Thesis, Awarded the 2014 Takeshi Umehara Prize
Selected by MIT press' Leonardo Magazine for its peer-reviewed top ranked LABS abstracts of 2018.
Leonardo Magazine's Abstract Service (LABS):
https://leonardo.info/labs-2018#Whittle
Abstract
This thesis examines notions of diagramming within modern and contemporary art. It proposes that the diagrammatic format allows artists to create work which mediates between subjective, metaphoric self-expression and the detached, intellectual rigor of objective scientific investigation, in a style that I refer to as 'Romantic-Objectivism'. This study incorporates selected highlights from historical and pre-historical diagram creation in order to position the diagram as a fundamental mode of human knowledge production and communication, yet one that has been overlooked in terms of its importance to art where there is a distinct lack of critical discourse concerning its role. A philosophical and semiotic analysis of the diagram aims to show how its relationship with the goals and techniques of the scientific project gave rise to the refined, skeletonized aesthetics of inter-connectivity with which it is now associated.
Over the last one hundred years, artists have employed a variety of strategies to take advantage of the unique visual and conceptual properties of the diagram, allowing then to apply key features of the semiotic code of science and mathematics to the aesthetic code of art. This approach allows artists to achieve a distinctive objective-subjective resonance in their work, leading to the creation of some of the most important and challenging art works of the modern, postmodern and contemporary periods. The thesis also explores the development of my own symbolic vocabulary of diagrammatic objectivity, as a practicing artist with a background in biomedical sciences. Representative works from my praxis over the last twelve years are correlated with key symbolic themes from the romantic period, to present my work as a Romantic-Objective meditation on our contemporary relationship with nature. With art’s incorporation of diagramming as part of its tools and techniques of conception and production, we can see not only the transformation of artistic practice via diagramming, but also a transformation of our notion of what the diagram is itself.
This thesis examines notions of diagramming within modern and contemporary art. It proposes that the diagrammatic format allows artists to create work which mediates between subjective, metaphoric self-expression and the detached, intellectual rigor of objective scientific investigation, in a style that I refer to as 'Romantic-Objectivism'. This study incorporates selected highlights from historical and pre-historical diagram creation in order to position the diagram as a fundamental mode of human knowledge production and communication, yet one that has been overlooked in terms of its importance to art where there is a distinct lack of critical discourse concerning its role. A philosophical and semiotic analysis of the diagram aims to show how its relationship with the goals and techniques of the scientific project gave rise to the refined, skeletonized aesthetics of inter-connectivity with which it is now associated.
Over the last one hundred years, artists have employed a variety of strategies to take advantage of the unique visual and conceptual properties of the diagram, allowing then to apply key features of the semiotic code of science and mathematics to the aesthetic code of art. This approach allows artists to achieve a distinctive objective-subjective resonance in their work, leading to the creation of some of the most important and challenging art works of the modern, postmodern and contemporary periods. The thesis also explores the development of my own symbolic vocabulary of diagrammatic objectivity, as a practicing artist with a background in biomedical sciences. Representative works from my praxis over the last twelve years are correlated with key symbolic themes from the romantic period, to present my work as a Romantic-Objective meditation on our contemporary relationship with nature. With art’s incorporation of diagramming as part of its tools and techniques of conception and production, we can see not only the transformation of artistic practice via diagramming, but also a transformation of our notion of what the diagram is itself.