SEN. On Lines and Non-Lines

Organized by Marzia Faietti and Gerhard Wolf

in collaboration with Shigetoshi Osano

"Sen" will be the third and last of a series of conferences that study the dynamics of lines in a dialogue of art historians, historians of science, philosophers and scholars of other disciplines. Lines and Non-Lines is conceived as a cross-cultural and transhistorical investigation, with a focus on past and present East Asian, Islamic and European concepts of linear and non-linear configurations of surfaces. It explores the borders and passages between drawing and writing, in regard to different scriptural and graphic cultures, as well as the linear construction or deconstruction of meaning. Lines assume a major role in shaping signs and symbols, but they also continuously blur them. Linear structures are extremely codified or regulated, but in the same time lines have the potential to liberate themselves to perform in polymorphic and proteiform ways, beyond the volute, the arabesque, the serpentine line. Lines are potentially infinite but they circumscribe territories or define planes and bodies.

LINEA III approaches these dialectics with a special interest in the interplay of lines and surfaces. On the one hand lines tend to materialize, dissolve or transform in threads, marks, traces, notches, or strokes (and thus finally become non-lines), on the other hand they articulate, ornate and transfigure animate or inanimate surfaces. This does not only refer to paper, stone, fabric or skin, but also to urban textures, etc. The conference will study these dynamics between and beyond the lines, and by doing so it will also address the gestural dimension of lines as well as non-lines.