Workshop: Spatio-temporal Profiles of Multigraphic Written Artefacts

Multigraphic written artefacts are characterised by their uses of multiple graphical modes to convey information including texts, pictorial elements, diagrams, musical or choreographic notations, maps, tables and all kinds of combinations of those. They form a visual matrix that offers, and often demands, a complex, multi-modal way of engagement. These artefacts are present in most writing cultures and produced for a range of goals in artistic, ritual, religious, or scientific contexts. This workshop is the first of two organized by the CSMC and the Paris Observatory which will explore what we refer to as the ‘spatio-temporal profiles’ of multigraphic written artefacts: how are the spatial qualities of these written artefacts – their (sequence of) openings, their physical dimensions – conceptualized and used by scribes, draftspeople and painters, and readers? How do these objects, many of which are products of complex and/or collaborative processes, reflect and evoke temporal dimensions? How do they relate to, represent, and structure, the spatial and temporal settings in which they are viewed, read, and used?