Circle and Grid. History, Science and Design
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Date
- / Cancelled / Sold out
Location
Auditorium 3 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
A curious manuscript gave rise to the fifth edition of «Power of the Word». In this conference, a panel of speakers interprets this work from various perspectives, ranging from mathematics to design.
This conference is held in the context of the exhibition Power of the Word. A Gift for the Emperor: Circles of Knowledge and puts into discussion its underlying centrepiece: the 19th-century Arabic manuscript of the Tuḥfat al-Khāqān, a stunning and enigmatic collection of encyclopaedic diagrams.
The object will be approached in a dual way: from a conceptual-historical angle and from a visual-graphic design aspect, by both academic specialists and contemporary designers and calligraphers.
The topics under discussion will be the relations between metaphysics and geometry, between esoteric and cosmological sciences, and the transfer of knowledge through Eurasian cultures, from Antiquity to modern times.
Speakers
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Ana Claro
Ana Claro holds a PhD in Conservation and Restoration and worked as a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the Getty Conservation Institute. She won a Marie Curie grant with the NANOART project and was the principal researcher of the project IronIC. She is part of the direction and editorial board of ‘Conservar Património’ and co-founder of ‘Textiles, Trade and Taste’. She is currently a researcher at CHAM. Her primary research focus is studying coloured materials applied on cultural heritage.
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Charles Burnett
Professor of the History of Islamic Influences in Europe at the Warburg Institute, University of London. His life work has been to document the passage of Arabic science and philosophy to the Latin West, documenting the activity of the translators, and showing how the translated works were assimilated into the schools and universities of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Among other publications, he has edited and translated the major astrological works of Abū Maʿshar.
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Fabrizio Boscaglia
Lecturer and deputy director of the Masters in Science of Religions at Lusófona University. He has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Lisbon with a thesis on Fernando Pessoa and the Islam. His research focuses on the dialogues between Portuguese and Islamic cultures. Guest curator of the exhibition ‘Power of the Word IV. Divine Wisdom: the Sufi Way’ at the Gulbenkian Museum. Author and editor of scholarly publications, and consultant at King’s College London.
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Inês Bénard da Costa
PhD student at the University of Lisbon and member of the Portuguese Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology and of the ERC Rutter Project – Making the Earth Global. She is interested in the history of science in European and Islamicate societies and is currently working on a dissertation on circulation of knowledge between Iberian and Indian Ocean navigators in the 16th century.
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Jeffrey Kotyk
Associate researcher at Università di Bologna, leading the Marie Skłodowska-Curie project ‘SinoIran’, that explores the historical relations between China and Iran in late Antiquity. His previous research has dealt extensively with the history of foreign Astrology and Astronomy in China.
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Joumana Medlej
Artist, author and educator from Lebanon, now London-based. Her contemporary art practice is rooted in past knowledge and art technology, about which she publishes and teaches. Her main research focus are the early tradition of Arabic calligraphy, inks and paints belonging to that era, and the medieval approaches to mapping the universe and making sense of our place in it.
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Juan Acevedo
Classics graduate from the Universidad de Los Andes with a PhD in History of Philosophy from the Warburg Institute. After working on Comparative Religion, he is currently with the ERC Rutter Project studying early modern Arabic manuscripts on Indian Ocean navigation. His main research interest is in conceptual and cultural history and in alphanumeric systems where metaphysics and craftsmanship overlap to express and create knowledge and realities.
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Manuel Lima
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. TED Speaker. Design lead, startup mentor, and educator. Currently Global Head of Design at Interos. He previously worked at Nokia, Microsoft, and Google. Author of 4 bestseller books. Spoke at more than 100 events around the globe and his talks have been watched by more than 3 million people.
Programme
09:30 / Welcome
10:00 / Opening
10:10 / Introduction to the Project ‘Power of the Word V. The Emperor’s Gift: Circles of Knowledge’
10:20 / The Gulbenkian Tuḥfat al-Khāqān Manuscript: Lights and Shadows of a Mysterious Immigrant
This presentation will look at the details of the Tuḥfat al-Khāqān manuscript, showing to the audience many of the pages which are not part of the exhibition, going over some of the subtleties in the graphic layout and their relation to the texts. We will also compare pages of the Gulbenkian manuscript with those of other collections around the world, to better assess the impact of the flood damages on the curatorial work.
— Break 20 min. —11:20 / Circular Concepts in Mathematics, Theology and Reasoning
Starting from the symbol for nothing being a small circle, and passing through the circles of the soul of man and of the universe, this presentation ends with the arrangement of arguments in circular form, so that they end where they began (except that a circle has no beginning).
12:00 / Tables of the Ecliptic and Celestial Equator in China
We have extant examples from the 8th century onward of Chinese tables showing the demarcations of the ecliptic and celestial equator. The earliest one shows the zodiac signs, which at the time had recently been introduced from India, while others are astrological in character. The changes in these tables over the centuries reveal how the Chinese understood foreign astronomical concepts through their own system.
12:40 / Debate
— Break 90 min. —14:30 / Visualizing Spheres of Knowledge
This presentation will be a tour through a millennia of circular information design in architecture, urban planning, fine art, design, fashion, technology, religion, cartography, biology, astronomy and physics, in a visual feast for infographics enthusiasts. From Venn diagrams and early celestial charts to the trefoil biohazard symbol and Target’s corporate logo, Manuel Lima provides a history of humanity's long-lasting obsession with all things circular and a unique taxonomy of the many varieties of circle diagrams.
15:10 / Around Pigments: Crossing History and Science
Colours found in nature, such as minerals and animals, or produced synthetically, have for centuries been transformed into inks to embellish the pages of manuscripts. In this communication, we will discover the pigments that gave rise to the eight colours used to complement the lines, circles and drawings in the manuscript recently discovered at the Gulbenkian Museum.
15:30 / Art as Knowledge Keeper
A guided tour of some of the artist’s works that are themselves cosmological diagrams, providing insight into the decision-making and techniques that come into play when into translating information, that may be multi-layered, into abstract visuals.
16:10 / Circles of Knowledge in Fernando Pessoa's Philosophical Writings about Islam
This communication aims to address a philosophical narrative by the young Fernando Pessoa, which deals with Islamic theology and philosophy, and addresses the shape of the circle as an Islamic metaphor for knowledge, including at a theological and ontological level. Images of Fernando Pessoa's manuscripts will be shown and a possible bibliographical source for the story will be discussed, namely ‘Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde’, by Jean-Frédéric Bernard and illustrated by Bernard Picart (1723-43), a work that is actually part of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum's collection.