Скачать или смотреть The Materiality of Thinking: Circulation of Epistemic Images: Nina Samuel (Humboldt University)

Nina SAMUEL (Humboldt University, Berlin), “The Materiality of Thinking: Circulation of Epistemic Images”
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Circulation of images is key when it comes to both the development of scientific theories and their communication. Hence, for his basic definition of scientific inscriptions, Bruno Latour coined the term “immutable mobiles”. It is based on the assumption that scientists invent objects that are only able to circulate and be disseminated because they hold an immutable core, a kind of semantic framework, that keeps them presentable, legible and combinable. These objects must therefore be robust enough so as not to lose their meaning during the circulation, and yet flexible or adaptable enough to enable scientific communication. This raises many questions, amongst others: To what extent and how do these circulating images or inscriptions have to continuously change compared to their context of creation or discovery? What different epistemic questions and qualities do these changes provoke? How do images migrate through different disciplinary ‘cultures of seeing’? When and how can the circulation of images also be slowed down or paused and to which extent does standardization – as alignment with the well-known – and conservative thinking form an antipole to circulation that may give rise to new insights? And, last but not least, what role does materiality play in this image based formation of thinking and theories? By analyzing working materials from mathematicians and physicists that had been active in the field of complex dynamics in the 1960-80s in Japan, the US, France and Germany, the talk will look at different types of image-based knowledge circulation. Departing from a case-study where the circulation of images has enabled interdisciplinary communication that would not have been possible otherwise, the preconditions and mechanisms of pictorial circulations will be investigated. The varying – and sometimes non-physical – materiality of these circulating images has to be thought of in terms of its energy potential and plays an actively shaping and transforming role in knowledge processes. In a side note, the talk will also take into consideration a second case-study from the early 21st century from biological sciences. By investigating a major media shift in contemporary biological sciences like the one from traditional fluorescence to localization microscopy between 2005-2012, it will be asked at what costs the interdisciplinary circulation of images takes place
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Dr. Nina Samuel is an Art and Science Historian and Curator with a PhD from Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin. Her thesis »The Shape of Chaos« investigates visual epistemologies in the field of complex dynamics and fractal geometry and drawing as a mode of thinking. She held various research positions, among others with the »Technisches Bild« (HU), with »Embodied Information –›Lifelike‹ Algorithms and Cellular ›Machines‹« (FU), and at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. Amongst her curated exhibitions are »The Islands of Benoît Mandelbrot: Fractals, Chaos, and the Materiality of Thinking« (BGC, NYC) and »My Brain is in My Inkstand: Drawing as Thinking and Process« (Cranbrook Art Museum, MI). Nina has received scholarships and research grants from the Fulbright Program, eikones Basel, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. From 2017-2019, she was Program Director of the Museum centered PhD program »PriMus – Promovieren im Museum« at Leuphana University Lüneburg. She is currently holding a position as Research Associate at »Matters of Activity. Image, Space, Material«, the Cluster of Excellence of Humboldt University Berlin.
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