Romantic-objectivism: developing a diagrammatic poetics of science

ABSTRACT

This essay discusses how diagrammatic modes of representation are a distinct subset of images that coevolved with the scientific project to visually embody key ideals from the philosophy of science. In making diagrammatic art, artists have found various means to appropriate, exaggerate and subvert this set of characteristics unique to the diagram as part of their processes of creation and production. This is in an approach that I refer to as Romantic Objectivism. As a practicing artist with a background in biomedicine, my drawing and sculptural praxes are presented as an ongoing project to develop a visual poetics of science beyond its purely factual and functional modes, in the spirit of the Romantic-period German scientist, philosopher and poet Novalis, and his recently rediscovered, unfinished project, the Romantic Encyclopedia.

KEYWORDS:

• Diagrammatology
• encyclopedistics
• romantic-objectivism
• art and science
• romantic encyclopaedia
• Novalis

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Whittle

Michael Whittle is an artist, lecturer and researcher in Diagrammatology, the study of diagrams. He originally qualified and trained as a biomedical scientist, before changing subject to study fine art. His recent project ‘Portraits of Thought: diagrams in art and science’ was selected by Mika Kuraya, chief curator at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, for a Terumo Foundation for Life Sciences and Art Grant, allowing him to spend time as artist in residence at the Centre for Advanced Studies at Kyoto University. Whittle is currently Research Assistant Professor in the Augmented Creativity Lab at the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University.