Скачать или смотреть Day One: Out of Scale: From “Miniature” Material Cultures to the Anthropic Principle

Selected papers from Day One of 'Out of Scale: From “Miniature” Material Cultures to the Anthropic Principle' Organised by Wenjie Su, PhD researcher, Princeton University/CASVA; Yizhou Wang, Research Assistant Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University; and Stephen Whiteman, Reader in the Art and Architecture of China, The Courtauld, this symposium is held in collaboration with the Academy of Visual Arts, School of Creative Arts, at Hong Kong Baptist University, with additional support from the Kingfisher Foundation, the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, and the Courtauld Trans-Asias Research Cluster.

Scale—the relative dimension, magnitude, or scope of objects, and their proportional relationship to the observer—is often perceived through visual and cultural assumptions. As terrestrial beings, we interpret the scale of landscapes, built environments, material artifacts, social structures, and historical events through the lens of our bodies and shared paradigms. Across time, philosophical and religious traditions have long pondered humanity’s place and purpose in relation to both natural and supernatural realms. Yet technological advancements—from maritime navigation to space exploration, from telescopic and microscopic investigations to the detection of cosmic microwave background radiation, and from embodied physical spaces to seemingly boundless digital spheres—have continually pushed us to reconceive the scale of our existence.

This conference brings together studies that examine the art historical, historiographical, and ideological significance of micro-scale and small-format designs, sites, and events. It pursues three key aims: first, to deepen inquiry into the sensorial, spiritual, intellectual, and technical implications of scaling; second, to explore how scale—of originals, reproductions, interfaces, or interpretive paradigms—has shaped the centrality or marginality of specific topics within art historical discourse; and third, to bridge investigations of human creativity with meditations on human existence through the conceptual lens of scale.

Across the global history of visual and material cultures, creatively re-scaled objects have played a central role in conceiving and simulating worlds that surpass our optical and epistemological thresholds, evoking resonances that are profoundly out of scale. By exploring how humans have persistently shifted scales to orient themselves within and across realms, this conference reflects on our inherently limited yet endlessly imaginative perspective—and envisions new pathways for launching beyond boundaries.

Programme:

Opening remarks, and introduction to the day
Wenjie Su, Princeton University; Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art.

Keynote Wei-Cheng Lin, The University of Chicago of Art 'Scalar Imagination: China’s “Small” Architecture'

Panel I – Paradoxes of Creativity
(Chaired by Hugo Shakeshaft, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery
)

Rachel Alban, The Courtauld,
‘“Miniature” Resistance: Timurid and Safavid Manuscript Paintings and Defying Intelligible Dimensions’.

Filipp Bosco, ICI Berlin,
‘Drawn to Scale. Sketches, Projects, and Other (Small) Paper Practices in Contemporary Art’.

Panel II – Resounding Whispers
(Chaired by Christine Stevenson, The Courtauld.)

Henriette Marsden, University of Cambridge,
‘“A Token of Love and Affection”. Miniature Bazaar Stalls and Victorian Models of Giving’.

Panel III – The Measures of the Other
(Chaired by Tom Young, The Courtauld.)

Rachel Hunter Himes, Columbia University,
‘Circumscribed Citizenship: Boizot’s Les Noirs Libres and the Place of Black Persons in the Early Republic’.

Lina Koo, University of Brighton, ‘Miniaturising Korea: The Development of Korean Dolls in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century’.