Signatures are inscriptions by artists in their works. They testify to their presence in the past and can provide them with a potentially permanent presence realized in the act of writing. Research on signatures has already provided a broad material base and shed light on the tense relationship between artist status, artist humility and - in the case of Christian-religious objects - Jensseitsvorsorge. The material, topological and praxeological dimensions of interest in the context of SFB 933 "Material Text Cultures" have often remained unconsidered.
The colloquium will focus on the signature-bearing artefacts themselves. Do their status, audience and effect change when they bear signatures? What is the relationship between the material, function and use of an artefact and human action in different social spaces on and with the object itself and the writing and associated presence of its producer? Can the material and techniques used to create the inscriptions give an impression of the technical know-how of their makers? Was the scribe identical with the artist? Do the language and rhetoric used reflect the scribe's level of education and that of the intended recipients? Were the inscriptions meant to be read or did they already have an effect through their visual appearance? How do the layout and position of the signature affect its (in)visibility?
We encounter signatures across epochs and cultures in different genres and media, in different scripts and languages. Out of this diversity of objects, the colloquium challenges us to compare them, focusing on the questions outlined above. Speakers from classical archaeology and various fields of art history - including Islamic and Byzantine art history - are invited to present their thoughts on the subject in 20-minute talks. This will be followed by a discussion of equal length. The languages of presentation will be German, Italian, English and French.
The colloquium is organised by the sub-project "Presence of the Artist. Medieval artefacts with artist's inscriptions" (https://www.materiale-textkulturen.de/teilprojekt.php?tp=A12&up=;up=), which is investigating how signatures confer presence on artists and to what extent this presence could be effective in the actions in which a signed object was involved. Aspects of production and reception aesthetics connect the sub-project with the cooperation partners of SP A10 "Script and Image in Greek Sculpture" (https://www.materiale-textkulturen.de/teilprojekt.php?tp=A10&up=;up=), which enriches already well-founded theoretical debates from the study of ancient texts with an in-depth investigation of the material findings on the objects themselves. Both sub-projects also ask about modalities of reading and the perception of inscriptions by the mobile viewer.