The photographic surface is the pivotal carrier of information – be it the mediated image or material indications about the object. It is presented here as the entrance into the study of... Show moreThe photographic surface is the pivotal carrier of information – be it the mediated image or material indications about the object. It is presented here as the entrance into the study of photographic materiality that unfolds in a profound scanning of a photograph’s multi-layered dimensionality and of all the interactions that (can) take place in its lifetime – ranging from human to molecular. The chosen case studies are photoworks (hybrid photographic works of art) that are partially overpainted and show (first) signs of degrading photographic material. The different (material) properties of the two interacting media with their distinct surfaces pose challenging questions on a representational, chemical, conservational as well as a theoretical level. The key concern is: How does the photographic surface act in hybrid photoworks as interface between substances and their surrounding space? By panning back and forth between material, technical, and theoretical studies and the case studies – Tacita Dean’s (*1965) Crowhurst II (2007), and two photoworks by Ger van Elk (1941-2014): Dutch Grey (1983/84) and Russian Diplomacy’s (1974) – I follow the methodological path of a multi-angled analysis of photoworks in order to respond to their hybrid nature and to think with their materiality and subject matter. The result is an in-depth theoretical investigation of the photographic surface as interface between substances and spaces within photoworks in particular, and ontologically in any chemically created photograph. It ties together philosophical, esthetical, technical and ethical point of views and therewith creates a deep understanding of photographic materiality at the verge of digital dominance. Show less
The work of Fernand Braudel (1949) should have revolutionized the way archaeology conceptualizes temporal scales and builds chronological narratives. Even though Braudel’s general views did impact... Show moreThe work of Fernand Braudel (1949) should have revolutionized the way archaeology conceptualizes temporal scales and builds chronological narratives. Even though Braudel’s general views did impact archaeological theory deeply, his three different time-scales, together with insights into duration as the inner dialectic between different temporalities, remain neglected in archaeological practice.Nowadays, ceramic chronology building in archaeology still relies on two main variables: time-space and pottery styles. This book aims to challenge this paradigm and propose a new way for narrating vital chronologies. The point of departure for this endeavor consists of a longue durée geographical unit, the valley of Juigalpa, in central Nicaragua. Through a view of materials—and especially ceramics—as complex and embodied palimpsests, as the bundling of unfolding traces; a chronology including five different intervals based on ceramic technologies is presented, from the first traces of human practices in 300 CE through to the present. Show less
This dissertation offers a comprehensive treatment of the textual sources of the Nandimitrāvadāna, a Buddhist narrative which is deemed an authoritative source for the cult of the Elders or... Show moreThis dissertation offers a comprehensive treatment of the textual sources of the Nandimitrāvadāna, a Buddhist narrative which is deemed an authoritative source for the cult of the Elders or Arhats in Central and East Asia. It is not only the first monographic study of this narrative and its textual history, but also the first systematic disquisition on living texts from the Buddhist tradition, a type of Buddhist texts that seem to lack a stable text-form and a unitary authorship. Putting all the three (i.e., Khotanese, Tibetan, Chinese) versions of the Nandimitrāvadāna under philological and historical scrutiny, the dissertation draws attention to the interplay between the fluid text and the cultic practice, and sheds light on the complexity of the tradition as well as the reception of the narrative in various cultural spheres. With the Nandimitrāvadāna as a case, the dissertation attempts to tackle methodological issues raised by living texts of that nature and to uncover the mechanism by which these texts have come into being. The conclusions reached may have far-reaching implications for the study of other genres of Buddhist literature, such as Mahāyāna sūtras, apocrypha, etc. Show less
One of the ways in which people express bookishness is through a declaration of love for ‘the smell of books’, a phrase that evokes nostalgic attachment to print. Rather than accepting, critiquing,... Show moreOne of the ways in which people express bookishness is through a declaration of love for ‘the smell of books’, a phrase that evokes nostalgic attachment to print. Rather than accepting, critiquing, or deconstructing this familiar rhetoric, our research proposes a non-traditional response. As researchers, when people have brought up the smell of books, we have redirected the conversation by gesturing towards ferries. The diplomatic non-sequitur ‘Oh look, a ferry’ has become a catchphrase that we have extended metaphorically and literally. In this paper, we report on a range of arts-informed experiments, including a YouTube channel, pyjamas, and a manifesto. These creative, playful experiments suggest ways of expanding discussions about print and e-books amongst academia, industry and members of the public. Our research suggests that arts-informed experiments can produce tools for thinking about the materiality of books, thereby contributing towards the development of book culture epistemologies. Show less
Salgaro, Massimo; Sorrentino, Pasqualina; Lauer, Gerhard; Jacobs, Arthur M. 2018
Starting from Walter Benjamin’s definition of aura as an ‘effect of a work of art being uniquely present in time and space’, the objective of this study is to test whether paper books and e-books... Show moreStarting from Walter Benjamin’s definition of aura as an ‘effect of a work of art being uniquely present in time and space’, the objective of this study is to test whether paper books and e-books have different kinds of “aura” and if so, whether the perception of the aura influences the evaluation of the literary texts within a book and an e-book. 59 subjects read four texts from two different genres (short stories and poems) on two different devices (antique book and Kindle). To determine the effect of aura we developed a questionnaire to measure the evaluation of the literary quality by readers. Results show different attributions of literary value depending on the reading device and on the genre of the text. Despite the study’s limitations, these findings support the notion that the context, i.e. the preconceptions of the readers towards a certain medium of reading, plays a determinant role in the attribution of literary value. Show less
This study develops and applies a new approach to study Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective. Current approaches to these objects are often still plagued by top-down... Show moreThis study develops and applies a new approach to study Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective. Current approaches to these objects are often still plagued by top-down projections of modern definitions and understandings of Egypt and Egyptian material culture onto the Roman world. Egypt beyond representation instead argues that these artefacts should be studied in their own right, without reducing them from the onset to fixed (Egyptian) meanings. Starting from a novel focus on the materials and materiality of a selection of stone Aegyptiaca from Rome, and by combining archaeological and archaeometric perspectives, this study shows that, while Egyptianness may have been among Roman associations, these objects were able to do much more than merely representing notions of Egypt. Show less
The starting point for this study is that for a large part of their existence, the paintings belonging to this genre have primarily been seen as export articles without intrinsic artistic value.... Show moreThe starting point for this study is that for a large part of their existence, the paintings belonging to this genre have primarily been seen as export articles without intrinsic artistic value. This fact, and the fact that they cannot be unequivocally classified, explains why this genre has, for a long time, not received the attention it deserves. The label ‘exportware’, though, does not exclude that these paintings can also be approached as ‘art’. They have an historic, an artistic, and a material value, which, as a result of their representative and social functions, over time formed an artistic phenomenon in its own right, and a shared cultural visual repertoire with its own (Eurasian) character. In order to draw conclusions about the appreciation of the extensive and historically valuable eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Chinese export paintings in Dutch public collections, this multidisciplinary research follows the entire trajectory of this specific transcultural painting genre in sixteen museums, from the production two centuries ago to the current position. At work in this trajectory are mechanisms between people, institutions and the paintings, which increase or, indeed, diminish the appreciation of this time- and place-specific art. Show less
This dissertation was written within the NWO VIDI project __Cultural innovation in a globalising society, Egypt in the Roman world__, (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University) directed by dr.... Show moreThis dissertation was written within the NWO VIDI project __Cultural innovation in a globalising society, Egypt in the Roman world__, (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University) directed by dr. Miguel John Versluys. The general aim of this project is devoted to the understanding of the different contexts in which Egypt as style, imagery, object, and text, was integrated in the Roman world. It thereby wishes to give Egypt its proper place within the process of Roman cultural innovation through carefully studying its material and textual remains in the context in which they were created and appropriated. Studies on the Roman perception of Egypt, concerning both textual and archaeological sources, generally approach Egypt from fixated and normative concepts. For example, Aegyptiaca have traditionally been interpreted within a framework of oriental cults or Egyptomania. The research project, in contrast, demonstrates that the dichotomy Rome versus Egypt should be approached with care. Besides the present thesis, three other PhD-dissertations are written within the scope of the project: Marike van Aerde, examining the role of Egyptian material culture in Augustan Rome, Sander M_skens, focusing on the material analysis of stone Aegyptiaca in Rome, and Maaike Leemreize, studying the Roman literary perceptions of Egypt. The purpose of this particular dissertation is to obtain a better image of the use, perception, and integration of Egyptian artefacts in domestic contexts, using Pompeii (1st century BC __ 1st century AD) as a case study. The houses of Pompeii yielded many objects that scholars nowadays would call Egyptian or Egyptianised artefacts and are subsumed under the denominator of Aegyptiaca. For the case of Pompeii, Aegyptiaca form a heterogeneous group of both imported and locally produced objects spread throughout the town, consisting of statuettes, imported sculptures, furniture, jewellery, or wall paintings. The most predominant interpretations drawn about the use of these objects have mainly been done on the basis of two accounts: they were interpreted as religious artefacts and explained in the context of the cults of Isis, or they were interpreted as exoticum. The interpretations have been drawn mostly without any contextual analysis or any theoretical underpinnings, and more problematic: the collecting and interpretation of artefacts have been based on modern scholarly perceptions of what Egypt entails, while we as scholars recognise something __Egyptian__ on different grounds than the people of Pompeii once did. The category Aegyptiaca in itself should be seriously questioned and the way Romans categorised should be scrutinised. The aim of this thesis therefore is to analyse the perception of these objects from a bottom up perspective, avoiding the a priori cultural labelling of Egyptian artefacts, but starting instead from the object itself with its main goal to contextualise and to give the finds meaning from within their original use-contexts. For this, methods derived from recent developments in object agency and relationality are used. Show less
In contrast to a traditional ethno-archaeological approach, in which contemporary communities are mined for information that can be applied to the past, this study considers that the interpretation... Show moreIn contrast to a traditional ethno-archaeological approach, in which contemporary communities are mined for information that can be applied to the past, this study considers that the interpretation of Maya material culture belongs to the people whose identity has been formed within the natural and material environments of that area, and through the effects of cultural interactions and differences (such as the Spanish Conquest and modernity) alongside certain continuities. The aim of this investigation has been to make this study of the past relevant to the present, specifically to people in the Maya area. As such, the theoretical framework, alongside anthropological and archaeological research, looks to philosophies surrounding personhood and materiality that have been extracted from interviewees from the Maya community of Santa Elena, in Yucatan, Mexico. European and Maya theories have been used together to re-position the philosophies behind the investigation of what we call Maya __art.__ Show less
The technique of Islamic bookbinding explores the development of the bookbinding tradition in the Islamic world. Based on an assessment of the collections in the University Library Leiden, the... Show moreThe technique of Islamic bookbinding explores the development of the bookbinding tradition in the Islamic world. Based on an assessment of the collections in the University Library Leiden, the various sewing techniques, constructions and the application of covering materials are described in detail. A comparative analysis of the historic treatises on bookbinding provides further insight in the actual making of the Islamic book. Apart from that, it becomes clear that distinctive material characteristics can be indicative for production in a certain period or region. The general perception of Islamic bookbinding as a weak structure best typified as a case-binding is refuted by the findings. Instead, Karin Scheper demonstrates how diverse methods were used to create sound structures, which fundamentally changes our understanding of the Islamic bookbinding practice. Show less
Three Christian films have become popular in the Commune of Cobly of today's Republic of Benin, notably the American "Jesus Film" (1979), the American-Ivorian film "La Solution" (1994) and the... Show moreThree Christian films have become popular in the Commune of Cobly of today's Republic of Benin, notably the American "Jesus Film" (1979), the American-Ivorian film "La Solution" (1994) and the Beninese video film "Yatin: Lieu de souffrance" (2002). The discussion centres on how people receive and understand these films together with the digital video technology that facilitate their recent success. Christian films are so important in this part of Benin that the question needs to be raised whether Christianity is shifting from a religion of the book towards a religion of film. The theoretical starting point is semiotics, a theory that has been foundational not only for film, media and media reception studies, but more recently also for the study of materiality. This thesis' main theoretical contribution is a critique of semiotics, arguing that this theory, which has been foundational to Western science, is in fact too limiting. Semiotics, even in its Peircean orientation, cannot sufficiently explain how people in the Commune of Cobly understand shrines, film and media more generally, both through their material manifestations and interactively in terms of communication. Instead, a process called "presencing", which goes beyond semiotics, can explain better people's understanding of shrines and media. Show less
