Scrolls encompass in one sweep the oldest and the most contemporary ideas about images and image-making. On the one hand, some of the most enduring artefacts of the ancient world adopt the scroll form, evoking long-standing associations with the Classical tradition, Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures, theatrical oration, and the word of the law. Yet today, scrolling is also the single most common interaction between people and their digital media: fingers routinely swipe across trackpads and touch-screens through reams of infinite hypertext. In between these two extremes too, we find a plethora of different artists and craftsmen turning and returning to the medium, from medieval medical treatises and Japanese emakimono to 19th-century wallpaper or Jack Kerouac’s continuously-typewritten draft of On The Road.
Workshop 1- ‘Scroll as Object’
(22-23 June 2015)
- Dead Sea Scrolls, Egyptian papyrus, Torah
- Medieval genealogical rolls, legal rolls, medical rolls
- Japanese Emakimono, Chinese handscrolls
- Fabric rolls, wallpaper, other decorative rolls
- Newspapers, type-written rolls, and other production line objects
- Canvas rolls, 70s cut-to-order painting
- Hypertext, online scrolling, Internet art
The second element of the project will be the creation of an online exhibition to be launched in December 2015 entitled Continuous Page, presenting a series of digitised scrolls from a variety of places and periods. Drawing on the research and expertise of the workshop participants, the exhibition will be a critical online resource and lasting record of the project, showcasing the potential for combining new media practices and digital ‘scrolling’ with the continuous page of the material scroll. Over the course of the workshops we will also be developing plans for a publication to coincide with the project.