Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A Podcast series from the PGR Community at the School of Language, Literature, Music, and Visual Culture, University of Aberdeen.
Announcer: [00:00:03] This podcast is brought to you by the University of Aberdeen. [00:00:06][2.7]
Shailini Vinod: [00:00:22] Hello and welcome to yet another episode of From the Old Brewery, a podcast that focuses on the work of academics and researchers from the School of language, literature, music and visual culture. I'm Shailini and I'm a second year scholar doing an interdisciplinary study in creative writing and sociology. With me here today is my co-host, Ian Grosz. Hi Ian. [00:00:42][20.1]
Ian Grosz: [00:00:42] Hello. Nice to be back. Yeah. I'm also doing a Ph.D. in creative writing - it's my third year now - and regular host here for my sins on From the Old Brewery Podcast.
I'm looking forward today to talking to two guests - the joint directors of the George Washington Wilson Centre for Art and Visual Culture: Dr Silvia Cassini, who's joining us remotely, and Dr Hans Hones, who's here with us here in the studio. Hi. [00:01:08][26.0]
Dr Hans Hones: [00:01:09] Hello. Delighted to be here. [00:01:09][0.6]
Ian: [00:01:10] Good. It's good to join you. [00:01:11][1.2]
Shailini: [00:01:12] Hi. So Dr. SIlvia Cassini has published extensively in international journals and edited collections on visual culture of science and medicine. In her last monograph, published by MIT Press in 2021, Giving Bodies Back to Data, she reframes existing narratives of biomedical innovation, emphasising the crucial but overlooked roles played by aesthetics, effectivity and craft practice in medical visualisation. She now coordinates the Intercalated Medical Humanities Undergraduate program at the University of Aberdeen. [00:01:44][32.6]
Ian: [00:01:46] Hans Hones is a lecturer in Art History at the University, here. Prior to joining here, he held teaching and research positions at the Courtauld Institute [of Art], UCL, the Warburg Institute, London and LMU Munich. He has published extensively on the history of Art, History, Graffiti and Art Theory. His latest book, A Biography of the Art Historian Aby Warburg, is forthcoming with the Reaktion Books.
So, welcome both! Nice to have you here in the studio. Feeling good? [00:02:16][30.4]
Dr Hones: [00:02:17] Thank you. Yes. Looking forward to the conversation. [00:02:19][1.9]
Ian: [00:02:20] So, just to start, then, could one or either of you tell us a little bit more about the George Washington…about George Washington Wilson himself – that the centre takes its name from – and then perhaps just a little bit about each of your roles in the centre and your interests, sort of how your own interests interplay within that. [00:02:38][18.5]
Dr Hones: [00:02:40] So George Washington Wilson was a Scottish photographer in the 19th century. He's from Aberdeen, one of the leading practitioners of his time, and he built one of the most successful photography businesses of the era. What we find really interesting about him: Well, for once, his collection and archive is in the university Special Collections. But what we find even more fascinating, perhaps, is the way that he cuts across high art and, what's commonly called visual culture.
So, on the one hand side, he was one of the court photographers of Queen Victoria when she was in Balmoral so, close to the monarchy, high status commissions. But on the other hand side, he also had a prolific business that just churned out thousands of photographs for the mass market.
And so, again, Silvia and I come from two different disciplines – art history and visual culture – and what we find interesting about George Washington Wilson is how he, as a figure, unites these two areas that are often considered separate. [00:03:41][61.2]
Ian: [00:03:43] Okay…So, that…that gives you almost a template for the centre itself, I guess. [00:03:46][2.9]
Dr Silvia Cassini: [00:03:46] And perhaps something to add to in light of what you're just saying, Hans, is that George Washington Wilson had a highly successful commercial business. So as his business grew, he had many photographers sent out around the world to take photographs not just of Aberdeen, but also of the Northeast, but also of South Africa, Australia, the Western Mediterranean. And then as this kind of pictures came back, they were sold for commercial purposes. And I would say that it's…it's very interesting for us as George Washington Wilson Research Centre, that his collection is now housed in the Sir Duncan Rice Library at the University of Aberdeen, and it's accessible to scholars but also to the lay public. And we do have also several postgraduate students who have been undertaking research, working specifically on the George Washington Wilson collection. [00:04:52][65.8]
Dr Hones: [00:04:53] Yes. And beyond that, the centre itself – as a research centre – functions very much as a hub: as a meeting place for scholars from a range of disciplines who have an interest in visual material. Broadly speaking, art, visual culture, film, scientific imagery, you name it. So, my background personally is in the history of art theory, and I'm interested, for example, in the history of our disciplines, why we became art history and visual culture, why these things are separate. And a lot of what the centre does is actually questioning and critiquing these divisions, these subcategories of academia, and trying to…to foster a dialogue between a wide range of disciplines who have an interest in the visual through a range of events and initiatives. [00:05:46][53.0]
Ian: [00:05:47] I see. And…and Dr Cassini? [00:05:50][2.2]
Dr Cassini: [00:05:51] Yeah, I would say that I'm a little bit undisciplined, so to say, in the sense that I have…I've been trained in philosophy back in Italy, and then I took a Ph.D. in film and visual culture, and I've been working a lot on the visual culture of science and medicine. I'm interested, particularly, in the way in which visual material of different kinds is used and created…used by scientists there, but also in the way in which it is then transformed and re appropriated by artist.
I would say that if I had to summarise my interest in images in a few words, I would say that for me…that I'm interested in the epistemic functions of visual materials. So, the way in which and images are used to explore, transform and also transmit knowledge. So that's what I'm also…what I'm trying to do throughout the research centre. [00:06:58][67.2]
Shailini: [00:06:59] Yeah, it was really lovely hearing not just about George Washington Wilson…and that was a lovely overview about the centre and your individual works. So, what I can gather is that the GWW Centre clearly also takes an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together art, medicine and science. So, either of you could answer this for our listeners who would like myself, love to hear more about art science, like what it is, what it entails, and what you feel its particular research strengths and pathways are. [00:07:30][31.4]
Dr Cassini: [00:07:31] I would say that…well, if I may start and then I'll leave the work to Hans…I would say that an important thing for me is to be clear: art and science are not two monolithic entities, and there's no such a thing as a third language: a little bit of an art science, which is a kind of mix between the two. Both art and science are historically situated, and ehm…sometimes it would be better to be a little bit more specific to actually talk about, for instance, natural philosophy. If one refers to…to science that, you know, in a specific historical period, etc.. So, I sometimes prefer to talk about perhaps the techniques or the specific practices that we can then gather together this very big and broad concept of art and science.
And the other thing that I would like to point out is that I think what is important to highlight for our listeners is that contrary to what perhaps common understanding thinks, art and science share the drive towards experimentation rather than creativity. So, I think that's an important aspect of what we are also trying to do at the research through the research centre. So, it's really experimentation, the glue that holds the two together. [00:09:12][100.2]
Dr Hones: [00:09:13] We're often trying to think about the arts on the one side, and sciences on the other hand side. What happens when we think about knowledge in that way is that we exclude a lot of things that also happen in between. Shalini, you're a sociologist, right? That's one of the classic disciplines that have been often proposed as a third way: negotiating between quantitative methods and creative methods. And what we're keen on fostering is a dialogue that does not only look at these extreme poles if you want, but also looks at the wider conversation that we can have with disciplines such as archaeology, medicine, anthropology, you name it, that might also, in their own ways, bridge between different poles and techniques of creating knowledge.
The centre, for example, tries to host a number of events, such as reading groups that each semester invites members of a different disciplines: music, medicine, philosophy, archaeology - and tries to just initiate a conversation between constituencies that are normally separated in order to see where we might find overlaps. For example, in techniques of working in the very things that Silvia just indicated, and yep, again, this is an experimental approach to a certain degree. [00:10:33][80.3]
Shailini: [00:10:34] I'd say it's excellent because, you know, as you mentioned, I'm so new to sociology and I'm trying to look at this experimentation myself and we will speak more about it as we go along. But it's really interesting. I think it's like a sort of continuum, I think. So, what do you think, Ian? [00:10:53][19.5]
Ian: [00:10:54] Yeah. It just…it's interesting that you're talking about cross collaboration between disciplines, and I was just wondering what you think was driving that return, almost, to generalism versus specialisms. And do you think it's in any way related to the pressure that Arts and Humanities are under from…from the emphasis on STEM research and funding? Or is there something else driving that do you think? [00:11:24][29.9]
Dr Cassini: [00:11:25] I think there's certainly a pressure on the arts and humanities to enter into dialogue with the so-called STEM disciplines and vice versa. But I think one of the key things is that most of the…most of the really pressing issues that the world faces nowadays require a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach and a collaboration among different disciplines. So, I think that there is really the emphasis towards collaboration and interdisciplinarity because we are becoming aware that the urgent issues – and I'm thinking about climate change, for instance, or social inequality –cannot really be tackled by a single discipline. So, we better be working together. This is my answer. [00:12:16][51.3]
Shailini: [00:12:18] As you mentioned, Dr Cassini, the general push we are seeing is towards interdisciplinarity, and funders and everything looking at researchers taking up interdisciplinary study. But researchers often are still faced with this very difficult question regarding career choices within academic disciplines, like myself. What do you feel the future holds for researchers like us aiming to for a career? [00:12:43][25.7]
Dr Hones: [00:12:45] That's an excellent question. I think one that most of us face at some point… [00:12:51][5.8]
Ian: [00:12:51] Give it to us softly, Hans…[laughing]…give it to us softly: that answer. [00:12:54][2.4]
Dr Hones: [00:12:57] Institutional pressures exist. There's no mincing your words about that. So interdisciplinarity is certainly something that is sought after by institutions that appears. Also, here at Aberdeen in many of our public facing materials, and that's serious, of course, we take that very seriously. But for early career researchers, I think it's also fair to say that your job eventually will probably land within a department that has to deliver an undergraduate programme and that has to be aligned with also, for example, one of the…of the research excellence frameworks categories. So, in a sense, you still need to fit, I think, in a certain disciplinary mode.
However, I would not want the arts and humanities in this situation to sell themselves under worth. Even if you are an interdisciplinary sociologist, an interdisciplinary art historian, I think it is important to stress simply what we can also bring to debates within sciences or medicine. Look at what we're doing for example at the George Washington Wilson. A lot of what we're doing is work with medical humanities, for example, and medics at the moment are tremendously interested in the way that information about health is communicated, communicated visually, for example - they call it health literacy, right?
Giving people information in a way that they can make their own health decisions. And these are genuinely medical questions, but they also rely on genuine in arts and humanities methodologies about how to design things, about how to communicate things. And that is interdisciplinary work that nevertheless relies on disciplinary expertise. And to find these meeting points where different epistemologies can come together, can collaborate together, and can productively create something based on their respective expertise. I think that's the exciting moment where we can be confident in our own abilities and yet feed into an interdisciplinary collaboration that is for the good of all fields within, say, our university. [00:15:17][140.3]
Ian: [00:15:18] So yeah, the work going on in medicine – the visual imaging, for instance – that's interesting to you guys from an art perspective - a visual culture perspective - but you provide to the scientists a sort of cultural context for them to understand how they communicate their output, I guess. Is that fair to say? [00:15:37][19.4]
Dr Cassini: [00:15:38] Yeah, I think it's important to…to really highlight that in collaborative work, for instance, in the work that I've been involved with, I don't know - biomedical physicists - it's quite important to stay away from the idea of focusing on…only on the final output of the collaborative work, but to…to really enjoy and pay attention to the process: to the process of collaboration. And what I observed in my…in my opportunities of working closely with scholars, but also practitioners outside my own research field, is that scientists really get the chance of becoming much more aware of the wider context of what they are doing: of the societal impact of what they are doing, but also of the history, very, very simply, the history, for instance, of the technologies, of the techniques and practices that they are involved with, or that they – the technologies and instruments that they are using. And I think it's so important, particularly for young researchers who are sometimes almost closed in these kinds of silos, and they kind of tend to lose the bigger picture.
So, I do really think that the role of arts and humanities is really to bring this wider picture, and to bring back also history, historical awareness. I like sometimes to say to my students – when I have the opportunity to have in my classes students who are also from Medicine or students who take the Intercalated Medical Humanities Programme – I like to tell them that I'm in favour of a slow paced art and science collaborative work.
So really, this idea, I think it's a little bit about the idea of nurturing a community of art and science amateurs: a little bit like what happens in the field of music. You don't have to be a musician sometimes, yourself, but you can be an amateur. You can, you know, appreciate music, you can enjoy music. And I think also with art, science, but also with science is the same. I always want to highlight how important it is that students in the arts and humanities feel entitled and feel they have the right – and not only the duty, but also the right – to engage with STEM, even though they are not studying a certain discipline. [00:18:31][172.7]
Ian: [00:18:32] Is it science that’s engaging with the arts and humanities, or is arts and humanities engaging with the sciences, or is it happening two ways simultaneously? Is it a welcome collaboration on all sides, I suppose? [00:18:44][11.8]
Dr Hones: [00:18:46] I think it starts to happen two ways, increasingly, because a lot of STEM subjects – a lot of people in medicine – I spoke about health literacy, right? – also realised that there might be certain shortcomings in their current practice. Speak about an NHS in crises, right? Where they also come to the point where we can't just throw more medicine at people – I mean as in drugs and hope it gets better, right? We might also find new ways of engaging conversations about health.
Similar things could be said about things like…like data and A.I.. So last year, for example, we did a workshop called Art Data and Patterns of Inequality, bringing together data scientists, computer sciences and artists. And a lot of that conversation was simply about what art can bring to data scientists in the first place to make them aware of maybe…shortcomings of their own practice.
Just an example. A lot of data science, a lot of A.I. is invariably programmed from the perspective of the person programming it. So, if that person happens to be a white academic who's programming a facial recognition program, well, the chances are that this device is skewed in favour of recognising, for example, white physiognomy. Often this is done without malicious intent, I would say, but simply because the person programming it might not be aware of certain biases, might not be aware of certain risks that their practice entails. And I think that's increasingly where the STEM subjects see the need to maybe de-colonise their practice and find ways of engaging with the biases and shortcomings of what they're doing. And this is exactly where they need expertise from arts and humanities practitioners. [00:20:36][110.3]
Ian: [00:20:37] Rather than just producing the technology, because they can, but thinking about what the societal impacts might be. [00:20:44][6.7]
Shailini: [00:20:44] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's interesting how arts and humanities are perhaps…sort of…questioning scientific essentialism and also, you know, addressing inclusion and exclusion issues, and it's interesting to hear about, you know, this bias that can come into, understandably, and because programmes…and AI is created by people. So, it's really interesting hearing about how these collaborations are, in fact, sort of bridging this gap and perhaps, you know, promoting inclusion in a sort of two-way-stream of academicians working together.
So, coming down to more specific initiatives within the centre. I was just reading about some of these initiatives that – either of you could answer this. Could you tell us a little more about this Picturing Science and Immobile Choreography? [00:21:44][59.4]
Dr Cassini: [00:21:45] Yeah. Yeah, of course I'm happy to do that. But the Picturing Science is a reading group, as we mentioned before, at the George Washington Wilson Centre is running every year reading groups devoted to the dialogue between different disciplines. And a few years ago, I set up this specific reading group called Picturing Science, which had really the goal of bringing together scholars at the University of Aberdeen interested in tackling the field and the problems of visual culture from different disciplines. So, Picturing Science is a reading group.
The Immobile Choreography project was really the result of a collaborative work that I undertook with the biomedical physics in the School of Medicine at the University of Aberdeen and the artist Beverly Hood – Edinburgh based artist Beverly Hood – and the City Artspace and the art gallery that is present in Forester Hill. And going back to what Hans was telling us before about data, well, the project in immobile choreography was very much about, if you want, about data, but data not just obtained by automated algorithms, but also data that come from human exchanges and even from the kind of very personal, the kind of phenomenological experience, for instance, of what it feels like being inside a scanner.
The project was related to the…to the development of a new type of MRI technology, a new type of scanner that the biomedical physics department has been developing at the university, and the artist and I were interested in exploring and bringing to the foreground, bringing back into the picture, the experience of the patient who is the final user of these cutting-edge technologies. So immobile choreography refers to the condition of stillness, immobility, that you are forced in when you undergo a medical examination.
It’s interesting because to be honest, the scientist, they always have the patient in mind even before clinical trials start. But they…they have to make these efforts of and imagining the patient and what the patient would feel like and what the patient would really experience using a new type of technology. So, they need speculative thinking. They need – and this is really where arts and humanities researchers or even designers come into…into the picture – really to bring this kind of a first-person perspective back into the picture: to kind of anticipate, if you want, the patient in this case.
So, these projects are not simply are really not about public engagement with science, but they are really helpful to scientists to better understand, for instance, the needs of future patients, the needs of the final users of a technology, and the project – I just want to highlight also an important thing about that project – that the project also entailed an archive-based exhibition telling the history of magnetic resonance imaging development at the University of Aberdeen. And…and that was very much based on archival research undertaken by myself using the special collections at the Sir Duncan Rice Library. So, this brings us back, if you want to really the…the goals of the GWW Centre. [00:25:58][252.6]
Ian: [00:25:59] Is there anything that you have lined up: events that are coming in the near future that you'd like to talk about or highlight for our listeners? [00:26:05][6.3]
Dr Hones: [00:26:06] We do, and I have to leave that to Silvia because she's the only one who can remember the title of our next conference. [00:26:12][6.2]
Dr Cassini: [00:26:14] That's. Yeah, actually, I, I know it's a very long title. It's…no…the short version is All Change: New Directions for Scottish Medical Humanities, and it's really a medical humanity one day event that we are hosting at the University of Aberdeen and together with the City Centre for Teaching and Learning in Health Care. And it's going to bring together scholars and students to discuss the process, outcomes and possibilities in this field of medical humanities, using a combination of papers, like keynote speeches by prominent scholars, but also workshops. So, it's going to be a very interesting and active day in which participants can join either in-person or online.
But, perhaps, Hans, you also maybe want to mention maybe also the…the the initiatives that we have, If you want, lined up for the next…the next semester: the reading group for the George Washington Wilson Centre. [00:27:25][71.1]
Ian: [00:27:26] So we'll put…we'll put details of that on the podcast notes. So, is there a site…an area that's got more details on the George Washington Wilson website? [00:27:35][8.5]
Dr Hones: [00:27:35] It is ABDN dot ACUK slash GWW. So, it's quite straightforward, isn't it? [00:27:43][7.9]
Ian: [00:27:43] That was a real radio voice. [00:27:44][0.8]
Dr Hones: [00:27:44] Was it now? Silvia, also mentioned another reading group will be coming next academic year, this time in collaboration with the French Department where our colleague Fransiska Louwagie is running a new project on comics and genocide. How cheerful, right? [00:28:03][19.0]
Ian: [00:28:04] Yeah. [00:28:04][0.0]
Dr Hones: [00:28:04] So but again, it's about communication of maybe dramatic historical events in popular visual culture through comics and how graphic novels can be an educational device for teaching groups affected by such traumatic events, but also to communicate that to people from in other countries. [00:28:24][20.5]
Dr Cassini: [00:28:26] Perhaps Hans, so we can…and we can say that the centre, the GWW centre, is open to all. So, today you met Hans and I, but there are so many researchers involved and many students, MLitt students, students who are undertaking research, who are writing for our blog. Um, so I think it's important to, to just highlight that if you have ideas for activities, for talks, if you would like to give a paper, if you would like to talk about a possible event, a collaboration, do get in touch with us and we are happy to listen, to meet and to, to accommodate your request and needs. So, it's a very …it's a very open centre in that we actually do need the collaboration of everyone. [00:29:21][55.1]
Shalini: [00:29:22] Thank you, Dr. Cassini. I mean, the whole conversation itself has been sort of absolutely positive. I’m sure Ian agrees around how, how much possibilities are open for, you know, these disciplines that have been considered so, so separate, to, you know, bridge this gap and, you know, hearing more and more about AI and about the new collaboration that you speak about, it's…it's so positive. So, I was just going to come to that. But you already answered. Unless there is anything more that you'd like to tell the students, you know, that would want to take up courses. Your undergraduate course or anything else you'd like to add, add to the student involvement participation. [00:30:02][40.3]
Dr Hones: [00:30:03] They should, of course, attend all our courses. Yes, do come and study with us both in visual culture and art history. But like I said, especially for postgraduate students, we're extremely keen to hear from anybody who has an interest in visual material who might find that their interests in visual materials sits a bit at the margins of their own discipline. We'd be very keen to curate a space where you can explore exactly these ideas, for example, by hosting a reading group or if you a PGR by…by giving a paper in one of our seminar sessions. So yeah, all welcome and open to all it has to be said. [00:30:43][39.8]
Shailini: [00:30:44] Yeah. [00:30:44][0.0]
Ian: [00:30:44] Thank you both so much for giving us such a great insight into the centre and both of your work. [00:30:50][5.0]
Dr Hones: [00:30:50] Thanks for having us. Delighted to be here. [00:30:53][2.6]
Shailini: [00:30:54] Thank you. [00:30:54][0.2]
Announcer: [00:31:18] This podcast is brought to you by the University of Aberdeen. [00:31:18][0.0]
[1789.5]