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Impression

Friday, 11th October, 10-12 EST/ 3-5pm BST/ 4-6pm CET

Our first workshop of Autumn 2024 centred on the intertwining of the material senses of print and imprint (from writing, drawing, and grafting to developments in mechanised print processes) with the immaterial, cognitive sense of ‘impression’ (for instance, as an early modern figure of imagination). Impression takes us from Aristotle’s De anima to the ecological traces of proto-colonial explorations, and from theories of generation to the gestural practices of the early modern mathematician.

Pauline Goul (UChicago) gave a rich and finely worked account of ‘impression’ as a way of thinking (and feeling) through the encounters, at various degrees of distance, between early modern French writers (Montaigne, Thevet, and Léry in particular) and new world natures and cultures. From the notion of the ‘impression’ made by a river shifting its course through the landscape, through printing and woodcuts, to ‘footprints’ and ecological understandings in the indigenous Tupi culture of Brazil, we unfolded a complex series of questions that led us to think about the ‘carbon footprint’, the intellectual shifts afforded or demanded by aerial perspectives, and questions of translation and transmission of commonplaces both textual and imagistic.

References discussed by attendees in responding to the presentation:

Mariana Petry Cabral, ‘Finding Footprints Laid at the Dawn of Time’ https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/indigenous-knowledge-archaeology-amazon-brazil

Gaudio, Michael. Engraving the Savage: The New World and Techniques of Civilization. University of Minnesota Press, 2008

The ‘Spiral Jetty’ project https://diaart.org/collection/spiraljettyaerials

Use of drones and AI to perceive Nazca geoglyphs in Peru:

James Bridle’s book Ways of Being (2022)