Project acronym FASLW
Project FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE: The Space of Law in War
Researcher (PI) Eyal Weizman
Host Institution (HI) GOLDSMITHS' COLLEGE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary Although violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and human right (HR) conventions are frequently undertaken in cities and by means that deliberately manipulate the elements that constitute their built fabric, this project contends that organizations of international justice could benefit from a closer engagement with the operational procedures, conceptual assumptions, methodologies, and technologies of urban and architectural analysis. Legal claims of the kind that are brought to international courts and tribunals or made to circulate within the general media often invoke images of destroyed buildings or of menacing new constructions, but these are too often merely treated as self-evident illustrations of atrocity. This project attempts to transform the built environment from an illustration of alleged violations to a source of knowledge about them and as a resource through which controversial events and processes could be reconstructed, analysed and better understood. To be undertaken at the Centre for Research Architecture, a multidisciplinary group of spatial practitioners directed by the PI, the project will employ new technologies and novel forms of spatial analysis in order to query the function of space as evidence within the different forums of international justice. The project is organized around the investigation of several legal controversies, each with a distinct spatial dimension. The project is driven by the introduction of a new operative concept Forensic Architecture (FA) which is proposed as a new field of practice and as an analytical method for probing the political and social histories inscribed in spatial artefacts and in built environments. The project will result with web-based interactive platform, an exhibition accompanied by a large edited catalogue and a symposium, and a monograph by the PI.
Summary
Although violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and human right (HR) conventions are frequently undertaken in cities and by means that deliberately manipulate the elements that constitute their built fabric, this project contends that organizations of international justice could benefit from a closer engagement with the operational procedures, conceptual assumptions, methodologies, and technologies of urban and architectural analysis. Legal claims of the kind that are brought to international courts and tribunals or made to circulate within the general media often invoke images of destroyed buildings or of menacing new constructions, but these are too often merely treated as self-evident illustrations of atrocity. This project attempts to transform the built environment from an illustration of alleged violations to a source of knowledge about them and as a resource through which controversial events and processes could be reconstructed, analysed and better understood. To be undertaken at the Centre for Research Architecture, a multidisciplinary group of spatial practitioners directed by the PI, the project will employ new technologies and novel forms of spatial analysis in order to query the function of space as evidence within the different forums of international justice. The project is organized around the investigation of several legal controversies, each with a distinct spatial dimension. The project is driven by the introduction of a new operative concept Forensic Architecture (FA) which is proposed as a new field of practice and as an analytical method for probing the political and social histories inscribed in spatial artefacts and in built environments. The project will result with web-based interactive platform, an exhibition accompanied by a large edited catalogue and a symposium, and a monograph by the PI.
Max ERC Funding
1 197 704 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-02-01, End date: 2015-01-31
Project acronym ITALIANVOICES
Project Oral culture, manuscript and print in early modern Italy, 1450-1700
Researcher (PI) Brian Frederick Richardson
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2010-AdG_20100407
Summary From the palazzo to the piazza, from the church to the private household, the spoken and sung word had uniquely important roles to play in transmitting information, opinions and texts in the society of early modern Italy. Oral discussion and performance, both formal and informal, were used intensively in the culture of the literate minority, while the verbal culture of the uneducated depended mainly or solely on orality. Constant interaction between the oral and the written enriched and shaped both forms of expression. Yet the voices that were so prominent throughout the cultural life of this period have been neglected. This pioneering project will provide the first integrated study of the practices and the social, intellectual and aesthetic values of oral culture, thus opening up new horizons for the study of early modern Italian culture as a whole.
The challenge is to recapture the rich but ephemeral world of Renaissance orality through correlated studies of the traces it has left in written sources such as diaries, archival records, literary texts, treatises and correspondence. The fundamental research question to be asked is: how did oral culture relate to written culture and how far was it independent of writing? The investigation will focus on four key areas: social performance, politics, religion and linguistic usage. It will encompass spaces such as courts, council chambers, churches, academies, streets, houses and the countryside; men and women of all social classes; and contexts including ceremonial and ritual events, oratory, public and private performance, and scripted and improvised entertainment. This unique research will also lead to a new understanding of the cultural functions of the exceptionally wide spectrum of languages used throughout the peninsula.
Summary
From the palazzo to the piazza, from the church to the private household, the spoken and sung word had uniquely important roles to play in transmitting information, opinions and texts in the society of early modern Italy. Oral discussion and performance, both formal and informal, were used intensively in the culture of the literate minority, while the verbal culture of the uneducated depended mainly or solely on orality. Constant interaction between the oral and the written enriched and shaped both forms of expression. Yet the voices that were so prominent throughout the cultural life of this period have been neglected. This pioneering project will provide the first integrated study of the practices and the social, intellectual and aesthetic values of oral culture, thus opening up new horizons for the study of early modern Italian culture as a whole.
The challenge is to recapture the rich but ephemeral world of Renaissance orality through correlated studies of the traces it has left in written sources such as diaries, archival records, literary texts, treatises and correspondence. The fundamental research question to be asked is: how did oral culture relate to written culture and how far was it independent of writing? The investigation will focus on four key areas: social performance, politics, religion and linguistic usage. It will encompass spaces such as courts, council chambers, churches, academies, streets, houses and the countryside; men and women of all social classes; and contexts including ceremonial and ritual events, oratory, public and private performance, and scripted and improvised entertainment. This unique research will also lead to a new understanding of the cultural functions of the exceptionally wide spectrum of languages used throughout the peninsula.
Max ERC Funding
1 453 356 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-06-01, End date: 2015-11-30
Project acronym MUSTECIO
Project Musical Transitions to European Colonialism in the eastern Indian Ocean
Researcher (PI) Katherine Ruth Schofield
Host Institution (HI) KING'S COLLEGE LONDON
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary MUSTECIO's aim is to produce, for the first time, a history of transitions from pre-colonial to colonial musical fields in the eastern Indian Ocean. It will focus on India and the Malay peninsula, largely during the period of British expansion, c.1750-1900, and combine research methodologies from both history and ethnomusicology. Previous scholarship has argued that colonialism created a rupture with past systems of knowledge in colonised musical fields. We will seek to show that the story is more complex: although musical fields did undergo large-scale changes, the continuity of pre-colonial systems alongside these changes suggests gradual transformation, not radical disjuncture. Colonial infrastructures in the eastern Indian Ocean did not, in other words, wholly displace the long-standing networks that preceded them, and even facilitated new exchanges of indigenous cultural capital that were otherwise unmediated by the colonising powers. The process we will map entails overlapping but chronologically staggered layerings of pre-colonial, colonial and hybrid discourses, undertaken in several language-cultures and by different constituencies over time. We will also suggest that viewing India and the Malay peninsula as a single, multiply-connected region (and not as separate cultural arenas as is still paradigmatic in ethnomusicology) throws substantial and unexpected light on these patterns of transition. Finally, we will suggest that the best way to map these patterns of transition is to bring pre-colonial and colonial musical pasts, and multiple indigenous- and European-language archives, into sustained critical dialogue. By doing this on an unprecedented scale, MUSTECIO will seek to develop a new historical model for the interactions of music and colonialism: one that will persuasively account for both continuities and transformations in musical knowledge systems in the eastern Indian ocean.
Summary
MUSTECIO's aim is to produce, for the first time, a history of transitions from pre-colonial to colonial musical fields in the eastern Indian Ocean. It will focus on India and the Malay peninsula, largely during the period of British expansion, c.1750-1900, and combine research methodologies from both history and ethnomusicology. Previous scholarship has argued that colonialism created a rupture with past systems of knowledge in colonised musical fields. We will seek to show that the story is more complex: although musical fields did undergo large-scale changes, the continuity of pre-colonial systems alongside these changes suggests gradual transformation, not radical disjuncture. Colonial infrastructures in the eastern Indian Ocean did not, in other words, wholly displace the long-standing networks that preceded them, and even facilitated new exchanges of indigenous cultural capital that were otherwise unmediated by the colonising powers. The process we will map entails overlapping but chronologically staggered layerings of pre-colonial, colonial and hybrid discourses, undertaken in several language-cultures and by different constituencies over time. We will also suggest that viewing India and the Malay peninsula as a single, multiply-connected region (and not as separate cultural arenas as is still paradigmatic in ethnomusicology) throws substantial and unexpected light on these patterns of transition. Finally, we will suggest that the best way to map these patterns of transition is to bring pre-colonial and colonial musical pasts, and multiple indigenous- and European-language archives, into sustained critical dialogue. By doing this on an unprecedented scale, MUSTECIO will seek to develop a new historical model for the interactions of music and colonialism: one that will persuasively account for both continuities and transformations in musical knowledge systems in the eastern Indian ocean.
Max ERC Funding
1 181 555 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-01-01, End date: 2015-12-31
Project acronym SV-RT
Project Sastravid - a new paradigm for the study of Indian philosophical texts
Researcher (PI) Jan Westerhoff
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary The aim of the present project is to transform the way Indian philosophical texts are currently studied. To do this we provide a philosophical analysis of a set of central works from the Indian tradition, a set well known for its demanding content and the conceptual complexity of the arguments it contains. This analysis will incorporate a set of cutting-edge methodological principles, the most important of which is the intricate interlinking of conceptual analysis and its textual basis. These principles will be encoded in a web-based electronic tool that will be developed during the course of the project. This tool, called Sastravid, incorporates an example of the new research paradigm and at the same time facilitates further academic research based on the same approach. Its aim is to provide a key that unlocks the contents of Indian philosophical texts by bringing together the information contained in commentarial works, both ancient and modern, in a way that makes it easily accessible from the text itself. Apart from structuring the works, providing commentarial background and linking texts to other texts the present project develops a radically new way of analyzing the text's conceptual contents. This analysis is linked directly to the texts themselves, which makes it easy to switch between philological and philosophical modes of research. This linkage between conceptual and textual analysis embodies a radically new way of thinking about Indian philosophical texts that is located at the very frontier of the discipline and has never been applied to the study of philosophical texts before. It pushes the study of Indian philosophical works beyond the domain of mere textual scholarship into the emerging field of research studying Indian philosophy as philosophy.
Summary
The aim of the present project is to transform the way Indian philosophical texts are currently studied. To do this we provide a philosophical analysis of a set of central works from the Indian tradition, a set well known for its demanding content and the conceptual complexity of the arguments it contains. This analysis will incorporate a set of cutting-edge methodological principles, the most important of which is the intricate interlinking of conceptual analysis and its textual basis. These principles will be encoded in a web-based electronic tool that will be developed during the course of the project. This tool, called Sastravid, incorporates an example of the new research paradigm and at the same time facilitates further academic research based on the same approach. Its aim is to provide a key that unlocks the contents of Indian philosophical texts by bringing together the information contained in commentarial works, both ancient and modern, in a way that makes it easily accessible from the text itself. Apart from structuring the works, providing commentarial background and linking texts to other texts the present project develops a radically new way of analyzing the text's conceptual contents. This analysis is linked directly to the texts themselves, which makes it easy to switch between philological and philosophical modes of research. This linkage between conceptual and textual analysis embodies a radically new way of thinking about Indian philosophical texts that is located at the very frontier of the discipline and has never been applied to the study of philosophical texts before. It pushes the study of Indian philosophical works beyond the domain of mere textual scholarship into the emerging field of research studying Indian philosophy as philosophy.
Max ERC Funding
736 783 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-10-01, End date: 2015-04-30
Project acronym WOMENART
Project "Reassessing the Roles of Women as ""Makers"" of Medieval Art and Architecture"
Researcher (PI) Therese Marie Martin
Host Institution (HI) AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary This study addresses the question of medieval women's participation in the production and consumption of art and architecture. As patrons and facilitators, producers and artists, owners and recipients, women's overall involvement in the process is investigated within specific social and political contexts, examining interactions and collaborations (or confrontations) with men. A new point of departure will be to refocus on the terminology used in the Middle Ages, particularly the verb 'to make'. For artist and patron is a false dichotomy, or, at the least, a modern one. The verb employed most often in medieval inscriptions from paintings to embroideries to buildings is 'made' (fecit). This word denotes at times the individual whose hands produced the work, but it can equally refer to the person whose donation made the undertaking possible. Whereas today's eye separates patron from artist, the medieval view recognized both as makers. A most challenging aspect of this project comes from its transverse nature as a study of Christian, Islamic, Jewish and secular works. Just as these cultures were interrelated in the Middle Ages, to understand them today they must be examined as part of an overall milieu. What I propose is a new way of thinking about the history of art and architecture from the Middle Ages, one that does not automatically assume it to be by and for men but recognizes the contributions of women while situating them firmly within their historical contexts.
Summary
This study addresses the question of medieval women's participation in the production and consumption of art and architecture. As patrons and facilitators, producers and artists, owners and recipients, women's overall involvement in the process is investigated within specific social and political contexts, examining interactions and collaborations (or confrontations) with men. A new point of departure will be to refocus on the terminology used in the Middle Ages, particularly the verb 'to make'. For artist and patron is a false dichotomy, or, at the least, a modern one. The verb employed most often in medieval inscriptions from paintings to embroideries to buildings is 'made' (fecit). This word denotes at times the individual whose hands produced the work, but it can equally refer to the person whose donation made the undertaking possible. Whereas today's eye separates patron from artist, the medieval view recognized both as makers. A most challenging aspect of this project comes from its transverse nature as a study of Christian, Islamic, Jewish and secular works. Just as these cultures were interrelated in the Middle Ages, to understand them today they must be examined as part of an overall milieu. What I propose is a new way of thinking about the history of art and architecture from the Middle Ages, one that does not automatically assume it to be by and for men but recognizes the contributions of women while situating them firmly within their historical contexts.
Max ERC Funding
1 200 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-12-01, End date: 2015-11-30
