An art history of machines?

A toast offered in honor of Donald Preziosi on the cusp of his seventy-fifth birthday, this essay considers a range of machine metaphors, their art historical settings, and their implications. Addressing the mythography of Daedalus and his wonder machines in relation to art history’s machinic enterp...

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Main Author: Daniel Bridgman
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Department of Art History, University of Birmingham 2016-12-01
Series:Journal of Art Historiography
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/bridgman.pdf
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author Daniel Bridgman
author_facet Daniel Bridgman
author_sort Daniel Bridgman
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description A toast offered in honor of Donald Preziosi on the cusp of his seventy-fifth birthday, this essay considers a range of machine metaphors, their art historical settings, and their implications. Addressing the mythography of Daedalus and his wonder machines in relation to art history’s machinic enterprises, an ancient art-archaeology seminar Preziosi directed at UCLA (in 1988) and the book, Rethinking Art History: Meditations on a Coy Science (1989) form the focus of my thinking about Preziosi’s work. At issue across the essay is the work of recursion, when machines make machines and in so doing create a recessive subjectivity for the maker. The essay ends with the speculation that art history’s disciplinary machinery may owe its generative strength to a perpetual need for replacement parts.
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spelling doaj.art-014b690253a442a4a2ac863f8c3bba3c2022-12-21T17:30:57ZengDepartment of Art History, University of BirminghamJournal of Art Historiography2042-47522016-12-011515DBr1An art history of machines?Daniel Bridgman0Smith College, Northampton, MAA toast offered in honor of Donald Preziosi on the cusp of his seventy-fifth birthday, this essay considers a range of machine metaphors, their art historical settings, and their implications. Addressing the mythography of Daedalus and his wonder machines in relation to art history’s machinic enterprises, an ancient art-archaeology seminar Preziosi directed at UCLA (in 1988) and the book, Rethinking Art History: Meditations on a Coy Science (1989) form the focus of my thinking about Preziosi’s work. At issue across the essay is the work of recursion, when machines make machines and in so doing create a recessive subjectivity for the maker. The essay ends with the speculation that art history’s disciplinary machinery may owe its generative strength to a perpetual need for replacement parts.https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/bridgman.pdfDonald Preziosigeranosmekhanenautiluskhorosrhizomethaumaturgyrecursion
spellingShingle Daniel Bridgman
An art history of machines?
Journal of Art Historiography
Donald Preziosi
geranos
mekhane
nautilus
khoros
rhizome
thaumaturgy
recursion
title An art history of machines?
title_full An art history of machines?
title_fullStr An art history of machines?
title_full_unstemmed An art history of machines?
title_short An art history of machines?
title_sort art history of machines
topic Donald Preziosi
geranos
mekhane
nautilus
khoros
rhizome
thaumaturgy
recursion
url https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/bridgman.pdf
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