Body under Construction/Condition
H17:00-19:45
“I Pomeriggi” series
H17:00-19:45
“I Pomeriggi” series
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Body under Construction/Condition.
The Eidetic Character of Figurations in Greco-Roman Visual Culture.
The event is part of the series I Pomeriggi dedicated to the Fellows.
Curated by Caterina Schorer (Fellow Roma Calling / Ancient Studies).
Since the depiction of bodies represents a consistent and ongoing cultural process yielding distinct results across Classical Antiquity, this Pomeriggio (afternoon session) will investigate the specific eidetic character – that is, the visual character and essential conditions of appearance and effect – of bodily figurations from the Archaic to the Roman Imperial Period.
Case studies during this Pomeriggio will examine how figuration was shaped by and constructed around technical practices, sensory reception, and ontological tensions across Classical Antiquity. The discussions will center the body between anatomy and artefact and will explore questions of referentiality between viewing and viewed bodies, addressing mimetic potentials of artificial bodies. The exploration will further include the tensions arising through the artificial construction of bodily figurations from heterogeneous elements, leading to reflections about taxonomical boundaries, with visual hybridity emerging as a central site of figurative negotiation. How abstract notions were realized and what potential they developed as embodied figurations will form the culminating focus of this afternoon session.
Overall, the workshop aims at two goals: first, the re-evaluation and active discussion of research categories and taxonomies – for instance, the terms ‘hybrid’ or ‘semi-figural’ – their adequacy for describing and analyzing image forms, and their heuristic potential for epistemic research on the history of images in Classical antiquity. Second, the investigation of aspects concerning the making, the materiality, the physical presence, and the reception of these figural forms: all understood as basic conditions of a figuration and its specific eidetic character, affordance, and operative impact within the visual and textual culture of antiquity.
The event may be photographed and/or video recorded for archival, educational, and related promotional purposes. By attending this event, you are giving your consent to be photographed and/or video recorded.
PROGRAMME:
H17:00 Welcome and introduction
Dr. Ilyas Azouzi, Head of Science, Research and Innovation, Istituto Svizzero
Caterina Schorer, M. A., Fellow Istituto Svizzero, Universities of Zurich and Heidelberg in collaboration with Sophie Preiswerk, M. A., University of Zurich
H17:15-17:45 Bodies in Becoming: Sculpting and Assembling Figural Elements in Archaic Greek Sculpture
Sophie Preiswerk, M. A., University of Zurich
H17:45-18:15 The ‘Greek Revolution’ Reconsidered: Sensory Spaces and the Pictorial Efficacies of Figural Encounters in Greek Classical Sculpture
Simon Bühler, M. A., University of Basel
H18:15-18:30 Break
H18:30-19:00 ‘Hybrid’ Figurations, or: Hybridity as Condition of the Figurative?
Caterina Schorer, M. A., Universities of Zurich and Heidelberg
H19:00-19:30 Notions Embodied: What Personifications Can Achieve
Prof. Dr. Dietrich Boschung (emeritus), University of Cologne
H19:30-19:45 Final Discussion & Concluding Remarks
Dietrich Boschung was Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cologne from 1996 to 2022 and Director of the Morphomata International Center for Advanced Studies from 2009 to 2021. His research investigates how ancient societies used images – sculpture, portraiture, and figural representation – to communicate power, legitimacy, and abstract ideas to their audiences. His publications include Die Bildnisse des Augustus (Berlin 1993); Gens Augusta. Untersuchungen zu Aufstellung, Wirkung und Bedeutung der Statuengruppen des julisch-claudischen Kaiserhauses (Mainz 2002); Art and Efficacy. Case Studies from Classical Archaeology (Paderborn 2020); and Effigies. Ancient Portraiture as Figuration of the Particular (Paderborn 2021).
Sophie Preiswerk is a doctoral candidate in Classical Archaeology and an academic assistant at the University of Zurich. She obtained her BA and MA degrees at Heidelberg University and completed academic stays at the Sorbonne and Yale University. Her doctoral research focuses on technical and artisanal processes of figuration in archaic Greek sculpture, while her previous work examined the aesthetic and material dimensions of inscriptions on statuary bodies in archaic Greece; her research interests lie in image studies within Classical Archaeology, with an emphasis on production aesthetics and processes of (image-)making.
Simon Tobias Bühler is a doctoral candidate at the Eikones Center for the Theory and History of the Image at the University of Basel. Supervised by Sabine Huebner and Verity Platt, his thesis in ancient history engages with artistic trends among late antique mosaics in present-day Jordan and Syria. Recently, he spent time at Cornell University as a graduate visiting scholar. The talk presented largely relates to his master’s studies in Classics at Cambridge University and a thesis supported by Caroline Vout and Nigel Spivey as well as to his undergraduate training in Classics and Art History at Basel University. Beyond teaching responsibilities in Basel, he acts as field director for the Basel Villa dei Casoni Research Project in the Sabine territories of the Roman Hinterland, with an establishing habilitation project on environmental exploitation and the cultural significance of Central Italy in the first millennium BCE.
Caterina Schorer is a doctoral candidate in joint supervision (Cotutelle de thèse) at the Universities of Heidelberg and Zurich, whose interdisciplinary research focuses on the conception of herms, hybrid works of sculpture, as supports for images and inscriptions in antiquity. Her broader academic interests encompass image studies in Greek and Roman visual cultures, with particular attention to the mediality and materiality of sculpture and portraits in context. In previous work, she has researched the interrelationships between (aesthetic) writing and image on artifacts. During her undergraduate studies, she studied Classical Studies at the University of Freiburg and Art History as well as Archaeology at the Sorbonne in Paris, eventually completing a bi-national MA in European Classical Cultures (University of Freiburg/Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès).
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