Modes of Compression: Aesthetics, Operations, Formats

Like the bellows of an accordion, many human-made objects are designed to compress: to respond to external conditions through a series of contractions and expansions. Though the term COMPRESSION is most often used today to theorize digital operations (e.g. formats, algorithms, codecs, bitrates), its historical, material, and aesthetic dimensions stretch far wider, encompassing cylinder seals, lithography stones, collection inventories, and elided narratives of architectural reliefs. This interdisciplinary conference aims to explore these and other precursors in dialogue with contemporary conceptions of summarization, abstracting, code, and storage. We consider compression both as a technical procedure and as a mode through which aesthetic meaning takes shape amid constraints — whether material, ecological or economic. Paper topics span temporalities, localities, and media, from medieval pyxides to film stock, nineteenth-century books to DNA bunnies, hand knitting to mass production. As we convene in the city of schiacciata, special attention will be paid to the squashed techniques of Florentine sculptors and to pietra paesina quarried from the Arno riverbed. 

Confirmed speakers: Kirsty Sinclair Dootson, Ruth Ezra, Michael Faciejew, Frank Fehrenbach, Ella Klik, Marika Takanishi Knowles, Malika Maskarinec, Rosa Menkman, Anna Olszewska, Alina Payne, Nicole Pulichene, Jens Schröter, Carlos Spoerhase, Christopher S. Wood

This event will be hybrid and will take place in person at Villa I Tatti and Palazzo Grifoni. More information on the program, the venues, and accessibility will follow soon.

With support from Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies; Lise Meitner Group "Coded Objects," Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut; Association for Art History; School of Art History, University of St Andrews; and the STAIRS Nascent Partnership Fund.