Envisioning Exception: Satellite Imagery, Human Rights Advocacy and Techno-Moral Witnessing
Tuesday 09 October, 2012
6pm, $0/Rsvp
NYU Institute of Fine Arts
1 East 78th Street
Violence interrupts and reconfigures; it degrades and reconstitutes; it also forms a basis for historical continuity. In a contemporary society saturated with violent imagery, in which scholarly discourses are imbued with considerations of violence, and in an intellectual atmosphere that favors technical knowledge over humanistic inquiry, we contemplate the urgency of the art historian’s project and the disciplinary cases that might be made. The 2012-2013 Silberberg Lecture Series will ask how works of art and artistic practices perpetuate or resist violence, and the responsibility of the art historian in this discourse.
Andrew Herscher received his PhD from Harvard University in 2002. His work explores the architectural and urban forms of political violence, cultural memory, collective identity, and human rights, focusing on modern and contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. He has been particularly involved in the Balkans, where he has worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia as an investigator and expert witness on the war-time destruction of cultural heritage; directed the Department of Culture of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo; and co-founded and co-directed the NGO, Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project. His scholarly work has appeared in such publications as Architectural History, Assemblage, Grey Room, Harvard Design Magazine, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Oxford Art Journal, and Theory and Event. His book, Violence Taking Place: The Architecture of the Kosovo Conflict, was published by Stanford University Press in 2010 in the series "Cultural Memory in the Present." His book, The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit, will be published by the University of Michigan Press in 2012. At the University of Michigan, he is jointly appointed to the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the Department of Art History. From 2005 to 2009, he also coordinated the Rackham Interdisciplinary Seminar on Human Rights.
Andrew Herscher received his PhD from Harvard University in 2002. His work explores the architectural and urban forms of political violence, cultural memory, collective identity, and human rights, focusing on modern and contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. He has been particularly involved in the Balkans, where he has worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia as an investigator and expert witness on the war-time destruction of cultural heritage; directed the Department of Culture of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo; and co-founded and co-directed the NGO, Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project. His scholarly work has appeared in such publications as Architectural History, Assemblage, Grey Room, Harvard Design Magazine, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Oxford Art Journal, and Theory and Event. His book, Violence Taking Place: The Architecture of the Kosovo Conflict, was published by Stanford University Press in 2010 in the series "Cultural Memory in the Present." His book, The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit, will be published by the University of Michigan Press in 2012. At the University of Michigan, he is jointly appointed to the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the Department of Art History. From 2005 to 2009, he also coordinated the Rackham Interdisciplinary Seminar on Human Rights.