TRANSITIONS

Call for papers

The term ‘transition’ effectively exemplifies the present time and the current situation of studies centered on the science of representation. This term has been used in several areas of study, ranging from music to geophysics, to mean the intermediate phase of a process that changes the structure or feature of a body, a phenomenon and the like, from a given status to a new one.

Actually, representation has always faced issues and questions related to transition: the history of representation shows that drawing has gone through relevant changes along its multimillennial life: the evolution of the forms of representation, of drawing tools, the changes of the support (clay, papyrus, paper, and so on), the present transition from analog to digital, the new forms of digital communication, the exaggerate offer of images (on and offline) that echoes Guy Debord’s intuitions on the ‘Society of the Spectacle’.

At the same time, representation generates transitions through the prefiguration and the communication of a design, that lead from concept to realization.

The development of digital representation has started a transition that is still in progress and its endpoint is almost unknown and hardly predictable; some relevant questions regarding the science of representation, e.g. the relation between drawing and the act of modeling, or the development of new strategies in visual language and communication, demand therefore permanent investigation.

‘Transition’ implicitly refers to possible futures, technical development and the search for new forms of expression; at the same time, this word is capable of evoking silences and thoughts that try to establish meaningful connections between history, theory, critics and construction, far from empty and meaningless digital performances.

The UID 2023 conference aims at exploring and testing, with the aid of mono or multi-disciplinary investigations, how representation is facing the challenge of digital evolution and propose a critical comparison between researches centered on the potentials of digital tools and studies that try to evidence the heuristic potentials of drawing.

At the same time, the conference aims at giving particular relevance to investigations focused on the combination of traditional and digital drawing tools and on the reuse of past expressive modes, that effectively point out that transition is a peculiar question of the science of representation.

The UID 2023 Conference invites the authors to refer their contribution to the following three thematic areas: Cross (History and Science of representation), Modulate (communication, reconstructions, descriptions) and Develop (Experiments, innovation, design).