Michael Rottmann • Diagrammatic (Digital) Art. Cultures, Concepts and Critique of the Diagram

Interface Cultures Guestlecture Series

Michael Rottmann • Diagrammatic (Digital) Art. Cultures, Concepts and Critique of the Diagram

In the 1960s the diagram had become an important medium in visual arts. My talk aims to introduce a „diagrammatic art“ and its variety, which goes along with a wide range of diagrammatic concepts and cultures. There was especially a developing of (artistic) diagrams and its usage as an interface. At the same time artists reflected on diagrams and criticised them in a media-reflexive and a socio-political manner – not least the diagram had become a widespread medium in other fields of society like sciences and design. The diagram will be identified even as a ›transfer site‹ between the visual and its critique in the context of an ongoing aesthetic discourse of visuality.

13.11.23 | 14:30–15:30| Interface CulturesLecture Room – Kunstuniversität Linz, Domgasse 1, 4020 Linz

Dr. Michael Rottmann is an art historian and media scientist. His research focuses on the history and theory of art and (digital) media in the 20th and 21st century. As a doctoral fellow in the DFG research group Notational Iconicity (Schriftbildlichkeit), he completed the PhD program. His doctoral thesis (book Gestaltete Mathematik) explores the roles of mathematics in visual arts in New York around 1960. After holding teaching appointments in Graz, Linz, and Vienna he worked in 2017-2022 as a senior researcher (PI) at the Academy of Art and Design Basel, leading in particular the SNSF research project Automated Innovations, looking at machine arts in the 20th and 21st century. 01-06/2023 he was a postdoc researcher in the ERC-project COSE on netart at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Currently he is lecturer at Peter Behrens School for Arts Düsseldorf.

More at michaelrottmann.org