American Academy in Rome - Being digital in the early renaissance

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME

7 East 60 Street New York New York 10022-1001 USA
Telephone 212 751 7200 Fax 212 751 7220
Via Angelo Masina 5 00153 Roma ITALIA
Telefono 39 06 58461 Fax 39 06 5810788

Being Digital in the Early Renaissance

CANCELLED

It is a commonplace of the digital revolution that the new digital environment is in many ways the print environment in reverse: as many have pointed out, the new digital environment is closer to pre-print script culture than it is to the age of print that is now coming to an end. If this is so, Thomas Aquinas and, right on the eve of the revolution of print and early-modern numeracy, Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo could probably understand the present digital environment and the principles of contemporary digital imaging much better than Walter Benjamin and Mies van der Rohe could or would--to mention only two of the most eminent advocates of art and design in the age of mechanical reproduction. For Aquinas and Alberti lived, as we do, in a universe of variable media. For them, the fixity of printed text and identically reproducible images had yet to come; for us, the fixity of printed text and identically reproducible images has already gone.

The symposium will be led by Mario Carpo, Associate Professor of Architectural History at the Ecole d'Architecture de Paris - la Villette and currently Department of Education Resident in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the American Academy in Rome.

Please note that the American Academy in Rome requires all visitors attending events to present a legal document of identification.

For further information: Contact the Programs Office (tel. +39-06-5846459)
American Academy in Rome
Via Angelo Masina 5
00153 Rome, Italy.