Post-doctorat ULiège – Digital Art History

Cher.e.s collègues,

Le Centre de Sémiotique et Rhétorique de l’Université de Liège recrute un.e post-doctorant.e (ayant obtenu son diplôme de doctorat depuis max. 6 ans) en Digital Art History pendant 1 an renouvelable 3 fois. Il s’agit d’un poste à pourvoir dans le cadre d’un projet financé par le F.R.S-Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique qui vise l’analyse computationnelle de larges collections d’images et qui débutera en février 2022. Voir l’abstract du projet de recherches ci-dessous.

Les chercheur.e.s interessé.e.s sont prié.e.s de m’écrire et m’envoyer un CV complet à cette adresse avant le 28 janvier : mariagiulia.dondero@uliege.be 

Bien cordialement

Abstract. Towards a Genealogy of Visual Forms: Semiotic and Computer-Assisted Approaches to Large Image Collections

This research project focuses on the genealogy of visual forms, that is the filiation of images within the framework of large image collections (“Big Visual Data”). More specifically, the project team will study the revival and migration of forms that are present in Renaissance and baroque paintings belonging to some European museums and that are detectable in large collections of paintings and contemporary fashion photographs available in databases such as the Web Gallery of Art and the Fashion Photography Archives of the Bloomsbury Fashion Central. This research on the genealogy of forms aims to go beyond the studies on visual similarities that are currently being conducted in digital art history and in the digital humanities so as to produce a diachronic analysis of the long period which sustained the transmission of forms from the Renaissance to the present day. The forms that will be examined in theirrevival/deformation/renewal are those of the gestures of the human body. These gestures constitute forms that are difficult to segment using the instruments that have been used so far in the field of computer vision (image processing). Such instruments favor a segmentation of the image according to the recognizable and static objects it may feature. In order to make it possible to analyze gestures and, more generally, to transform the current ways of segmenting images, the project team intends to work on the concept of “force”, drawing inspiration from the works on painting by Gilles Deleuze and René Thom. This project is also in line with Aby Warburg’s theoretical-practical perspective on the migration of motifs and with Henri Focillon’s work on the genealogy of forms, and it aims to renew the discussion on the relation between contemporary quantitative and qualitative methods supported by computational analysis.

Maria Giulia Dondero

Directrice de recherches du Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS/ 
F.R.S.-FNRS Research Director