Beyond Mimesis and Convention: Representation in Art and Science

Beyond Mimesis and Convention: Representation in Art and Science
Springer; 1st Edition | May 21, 2010 | ISBN-10: 9048138507 | 260 pages | PDF | 2.6 MbRepresentation is a concern crucial to the sciences and the arts alike. Scientists devote substantial time to devising and exploring representations of all kinds. From photographs and computer-generated images to diagrams, charts, and graphs; from scale models to abstract theories, representations are ubiquitous in, and central to, science. Likewise, after spending much of the twentieth century in proverbial exile as abstraction and Formalist aesthetics reigned supreme, representation has returned with a vengeance to contemporary visual art. Representational photography, video and ever-evolving forms of new media now figure prominently in the globalized art world, while this "return of the real" has re-energized problems of representation in the traditional media of painting and sculpture. If it ever really left, representation in the arts is certainly back.