On the Podium
Lectures
A selection of keynote addresses, invited lectures, and symposium contributions at universities and cultural institutions worldwide, 2002–2020.
2020
"Weighty Shadows / Stained Screens"
Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London · London, UK · February 19, 2020
Critic — Bartlett Ph.D Research Project Conference
University College London · London, UK · February 18, 2020
2017
"Creation Unbound: The Revolution from Matter to Stuff"
Brown Symposium XXXVIII, Southwestern University · Georgetown, Texas · March 1–3, 2017
"Genealogies of Excessive Screen"
Mellon Sawyer Seminar, Yale University · New Haven, Connecticut · April 20, 2017
Mellon-sponsored seminar analyzing contemporary screens in relation to historical "screen" objects.
"Turning Wild: Embodied Mind and the Environment"
University of Missouri-Kansas City · Kansas City, Missouri · April 2017
Part of the Turning the Mind Inside Out event series.
2016
Keynote Address — Crossing Boundaries Symposium: Technology in the Arts
University of Lethbridge · Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada · October 29, 2016
2015
"Whatever Happened to Selective Attention"
University of Minnesota, Moorhead · October 2015
"Technology and BioArt"
Fondation Fyssen · Paris, France · December 2015
2013
"Attention / Attentiveness"
Drake University · Sioux City, Iowa · October 2013
2010
"Methods: Visual, Technological, Narrative, Social"
College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley · 50th Anniversary Celebration · February 5, 2010
Plenary Lecture — Sixth Annual Life Sciences & Society Symposium
University of Missouri · Columbia, Missouri · March 12, 2010
Advisor and Panelist — Online Symposium "Evolution and Culture"
National Academy of Sciences / University of Maryland, Baltimore County · March 2010
2009
"High Strangeness: Making Richard Meier's Museum Strange Again"
High Museum of Art, Atlanta · Seminar with Georgia Tech School of Architecture Faculty · January 15, 2009
"Culture and the Humanities Conference"
Suffolk University Law School · Boston, Massachusetts · April 3, 2009
Invited Lecture
Department of Art and Art History, Cornell University · Ithaca, New York · April 27, 2009
Public Symposium — Art/Science/Spectacle Panel
Museum of Contemporary Art · Chicago, Illinois · September 12, 2009
Panel with Peter Galison and James Turrell.
"Olafur Eliasson's New Devices of Wonder"
Museum of Contemporary Art · Chicago, Illinois · September 12, 2009
Fall Faculty Conference Keynote
Savannah College of Art and Design · Savannah, Georgia · September 14, 2009
"Reciprocity and Neural Darwinism"
Reframing Darwin: Evolution, Art, and Science Conference, University of Melbourne · Melbourne, Australia · October 22–25, 2009
Lectures on "The Future of Art History"
Lund University, Department of Cultural Studies and University of Copenhagen, Department of Art History · October 7–13, 2009
Keynote Address — The Super Human: Revolution of the Species
Australian Network for Art & Technology · Melbourne, Australia · November 2009
"The Image in Science"
Lunds Universitet · Lund, Sweden · November 6–7, 2009
Plenary Lecture — Habitus in Habitat II: Other Sides of Cognition
Collegium Budapest · Berlin, Germany · November 19–21, 2009
"From Wonder to Insight: Uncommon Arrangements and Smart Things"
Columbus Museum of Art · Columbus, Ohio · November 23, 2009
Conversation with David Wilson.
2008
"Crystal and Smoke: Facets of Cognitive Aesthetics" — Lecture Series
Templeton Fellow Program, University of Southern California · Los Angeles, California · January 28–February 10, 2008
Six-lecture series: "Skeletal Figures"; "Cold Intimacy / Hot Entanglement"; "Motor Mirroring"; "Inner Sky: Cave Vision"; "The Miscellaneous Subject"; "The Long Conscious Look."
"Whatever Happened to Conscious Attention?"
Dialogues in Art and Architecture Lecture Series, Athenaeum Music & Arts Library · La Jolla, California · February 12, 2008
Bar-Hillel Colloquium Lectures — 27th Annual Series
Van Leer Jerusalem Institute / Cohn Institute / Edelstein Center · Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University, Israel · March 23–29, 2008
"Echo Objects"
International Meeting of Society for Science, Literature, Society, and the Arts · Berlin, Germany · June 6, 2008
"Consciousness Reframed" — Plenary Speaker
The Planetary Collegium's IXth International Research Conference · Vienna, Austria · July 3, 2008
125th Anniversary Celebration
Indianapolis Museum of Art · Indianapolis, Indiana · October 2008
"Gazing into the 21st Century"
Goettweig · Austria · October 16–18, 2008
"Order: Schematic Forms and the Intuition of Emotion"
Annual Conference, Centre for Literary and Cultural Research · Berlin, Germany · October 30–November 1, 2008
Bonner Lecture and Prize — "Echo Objects"
Academy of Scholars, Wayne State University · Detroit, Michigan · November 5, 2008
"Jumping the Distance" — Marc and Constance Jacobson Lecture
University of Michigan · Ann Arbor, Michigan · November 6, 2008
"Where is Language / Where is Culture?"
Colloquium in Honor of the Bicentenary, Royal Netherlands Academy of Art and Sciences · Amsterdam, Netherlands · November 14, 2008
"From Wonder to Insight"
Columbus Museum of Art · Columbus, Ohio · November 23, 2008
"Controversial Bodies: How to View Plastinated Corpses"
Center for Practical Bioethics · Kansas City, Missouri · December 4–5, 2008
2007
"Visual Formulas, Schema, and How They Mean"
Stanford University · Stanford, California · January 16, 2007
"Narrative or Episodic Self-Consciousness"
College Art Association Annual Conference · New York, New York · February 14–17, 2007
"The Return of Grammars of Expression" — Burke Lecture
Symposium on Human Nature: Future Worlds, Indiana University · Bloomington, Indiana · March 1, 2007
"Neuroscience and the Art Museum" — Inaugural Lecture
Future of the Art Museum Lecture Series, High Museum · Atlanta, Georgia · March 22, 2007
"Narrative or Episodic Self-Consciousness"
23rd Annual Meeting of ASECS · Atlanta, Georgia · March 23, 2007
"Compounding: Emblems and Neural Synchrony"
SUNY-Buffalo · Buffalo, New York · April 11, 2007
"Grammars of Expression and the Encapsulation of Thought"
Conference on Humanities and Neuroscience, Bucknell University · Lewisburg, Pennsylvania · April 20–22, 2007
"The Eye of the Beholder" — Roundtable
Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination · New York, New York · April 23, 2007
Roundtable with Vittorio Gallese and David Freedberg.
"Image Processes, Imagination and the Imaginary"
ZKM (Center for Art and Media Technology) · Karlsruhe, Germany · May 3–5, 2007
"Ubiquitous Media: Asian Transformations"
Theory, Culture, & Society 25th Anniversary Conference, Tokyo University · Tokyo, Japan · July 13–16, 2007
"Technologies of Interiority" — Dayton Visiting Artists Program
Connecticut College · New London, Connecticut · October 17, 2007
NSF Workshop on Nano-Imaging
University of South Carolina Nano Center · Columbia, South Carolina · October 25–27, 2007
"The New Attention Disorders and the Limitations of Autopoiesis"
Society for Literature, Science and the Arts 21st Annual Conference: CODE · Portland, Maine · November 1–4, 2007
"Representations of Invisible Worlds"
Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität · Frankfurt, Germany · November 5–9, 2007
"Moral Grammar: Towards an Evolutionary Biology of Images"
Philosophy and Ethics Conference, University of Glasgow · Glasgow, Scotland · December 13–14, 2007
2006
"The Return of Autonomy"
Freie Universität Berlin · Berlin, Germany · February 6, 2006
"Beyond the Atomistic Aperture"
International Society for Photographic Education · Chicago, Illinois · March 25, 2006
Buttrick Hall Rededication Address
Vanderbilt University · Nashville, Tennessee · April 20, 2006
"No Pictures on the Inside" — University Lecture
University of Edinburgh · Edinburgh, Scotland · May 6, 2006
Einstein Forum Lecture
Einstein Forum · Potsdam, Germany · June 6, 2006
"On the Impossibilities of Self-Consciousness"
Conference on Representations of Impossibility, University of Zurich · Zurich, Switzerland · July 7, 2006
"Putting Images Back in Mind"
University of Manchester · Manchester, UK · November 7, 2006
2005
"A Cognitive Aesthetics of Human Interiority"
Workshop on Visualizing Science, University of Southern California · Los Angeles, California · February 25, 2005
"Mirror Neurons" — Session on "The Face"
American Eighteenth-Century Society Annual Meeting · Las Vegas, Nevada · March 31–April 3, 2005
"Recapturing the Complexity of Mimesis"
Narrative: An International Conference, J.B. Speed Art Museum · Louisville, Kentucky · April 8, 2005
"The Remaining 10%"
International Conference on Visual Literacy, University College Cork · Cork, Ireland · April 14–15, 2005
Plenary Lecture — Neuroaesthetics Conference
Goldsmiths College · London, UK · May 20–21, 2005
"Field Works: Art/Geography" — Commentator
UCLA Hammer Museum · Los Angeles, California · May 5–6, 2005
"Artificial Intensity"
Gender, Performativity and Technology Conference, Lancaster University · Lancaster, UK · June 8, 2005
"Orientation: On the Pre- and Post-History of the Sublime"
Image and Meaning 2, Getty Center · Los Angeles, California · June 23–25, 2005
Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomenon Conference
Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum · Chicago, Illinois · June 26–July 1, 2005
"Synchronizing the Local with the Distant"
Triennial Meeting of the International Society for Emblem Studies · Champaign-Urbana, Illinois · July 24–30, 2005
Plenary Panel Chair — Refresh! First International Conference on Histories of Media Art, Science, and Technology
Banff New Media Institute · Banff, Alberta, Canada · September 28–October 2, 2005
Cognitive Forum Participant / Plenary Panel Chair — "Feeling Thought: Reimagining Interiority"
Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts · Chicago, Illinois · November 10–13, 2005
Participant with Gerald Edelman, Warren Neidich, and Katherine Hayles.
2004
ACLS Workshop — Digital Technology and Infrastructure in the Humanities
American Council of Learned Societies · New York, New York · February 9, 2004
"Visualizing the Past" — Commentator
Conference on History and Geography, Newberry Library · Chicago, Illinois · March 25–27, 2004
"Techniques of Epiphany" — Lamar Dodd School of Art Visiting Artist/Scholar Program
University of Georgia · Athens, Georgia · April 12–14, 2004
"Technology, Instruments, and the Amplification of Reality"
Georgia Museum of Art · Athens, Georgia · April 12–14, 2004
"Beyond Productivity" — Responses to National Research Council Report
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign · April 16–17, 2004
"Sir William Hamilton's 'Shadow-Shews'" — Inaugural Lecture
Nicholson Center for British Studies, University of Chicago · Chicago, Illinois · April 22, 2004
"Art and Technology" — Visiting Scholar Series
DePaul University · Chicago, Illinois · April 26, 2004
"Techniques of Epiphany" — Workshop
University of Chicago · Chicago, Illinois · April 27, 2004
"Public Health as Public Art"
Gender Science and Anatomy Series, Northwestern University · Chicago, Illinois · May 3, 2004
"Projection and Epiphany"
Colloque International: L'histoire de l'histoire de l'art en France au XIXe siècle · Paris, France · June 3, 2004
"Mapping the Body" — Panel Co-Chair
International Congress of Art History (CIHA): Sites and Territories of Art History · Montreal, Canada · August 22–27, 2004
"Outside In: Exploring the Human Genome Project"
Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University · Chicago, Illinois · October 2, 2004
"Interplay" — Keynote Address
Midwest College Art Association Conference · Minneapolis, Minnesota · October 7, 2004
"Hedonics: Pleasure, Pain, and the Neurobiology of Feeling"
Science, Literature, and Society Conference · Durham, North Carolina · October 14–17, 2004
"Optical Technology & the Construction of Subjectivity" — Dale Lecture
University of Western Ontario · London, Ontario, Canada · November 8, 2004
"Transcendence Machines"
Das Bild in der Wissenschaft Symposium, Hamburger Bahnhof · Berlin, Germany · December 15–17, 2004
2003
"Artificial Intensity: Images, Instruments and Technology of Amplification"
SEMINAIRE RE/MIX, IRCAM / Université de Paris · Paris, France · January 21, 2003
Annual Goldberg Lecture
Vanderbilt University · Nashville, Tennessee · January 29–30, 2003
"Techniques of Epiphany"
College Art Association 91st Annual Conference · New York, New York · February 19–22, 2003
"The Dialogic Image"
Rhode Island School of Design · Providence, Rhode Island · March 14–15, 2003
Harn Eminent Scholar Lecture
University of Florida · Gainesville, Florida · March 26, 2003
Program in Complex Systems — Guest Lecture
University of Alaska · Anchorage, Alaska · April 17–18, 2003
"Artificial Intensity" — Public Lecture
Center for the Humanities and the Arts, University of Colorado-Boulder · Boulder, Colorado · April 24, 2003
"Towards a Cognitive Image History" — Felix Burda Memorial Lecture
Iconic Turn Symposium · Munich, Germany · June 26, 2003
"Analogy: Creating a Logic of Reconciliation"
Art and Human Rights Conference, Australian National University · Canberra, Australia · August 7–10, 2003
"Genetic Perspective or Biohistory"
Australian National University · Canberra, Australia · August 15, 2003
"Art in the Domain of Ambiguity" — MacGeorge Fellowship Lecture
University of Melbourne · Melbourne, Australia · September 19, 2003
"Public Health as Public Art"
Symposium on the Visual Media of Public Health, National Library of Medicine · Bethesda, Maryland · October 16, 2003
"What Light Can the Neurobiology of Pleasure and Pain Shed on the Picturesque"
Conference on Pain, Wellcome Institute · London, UK · October 29, 2003
"Techniques of Epiphany"
Conference on Instruments in Science and Art, Freie Universität Berlin · Berlin, Germany · November 1, 2003
"Genesis: Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics"
University of California Berkeley Art Museum · Berkeley, California · November 9, 2003
Visiting Artist Program — University Lecture
Utah State University · Logan, Utah · November 18, 2003
"Creation without Concept"
Bild des Wissens Series, Zentrum für Literaturforschung Berlin / Hamburger Bahnhof · Berlin, Germany · December 9, 2003
2002
"Devices of Wonder" Exhibition Seminar
Media Studies Group · Los Angeles, California · January 18, 2002
"Perspectives on an Exhibition"
Arts Club of Chicago · Chicago, Illinois · January 21, 2002
Presentation on "Devices of Wonder"
University of Chicago Visual Arts Visiting Committee · Chicago, Illinois · February 25, 2002
"The Hermeneutics of Reconciliation"
Aesthetics, Hermeneutics, and Neurosciences Symposium · Heidelberg, Germany · March 1–2, 2002
"Amplifying Reality: Sensory Technology and the Continuum of Desire"
University of Iowa, Humanities Program · Iowa City, Iowa · March 11, 2002
"The Dynamics of Completion"
Symposium on Frames of Viewing: The Brain, Cognition and Art · Getty Research Institute / Stanford Center for Advanced Study · April 3–6, 2002
"The Romance of Technology"
Conference: Collection, Laboratory, Theater — Knowledge in the 17th Century, Freie Universität Berlin · Berlin, Germany · May 23–26, 2002
"Artful Science / Ingenious Apparatus"
Conference on Images and Ideas: Exhibiting Science in Museums, University of Chicago · Chicago, Illinois · June 17–18, 2002
"Image in the Middle: Analogy as Media Theory" — Inaugural Lecture
Berlin Thyssen Foundation Lectures on Iconology of the Present · Berlin, Germany · June 26, 2002
"Artificial Intensity" — Rudolf Arnheim Torgespräch
Brandenburger Tor · Berlin, Germany · July 5, 2002
"Leonardo's Bridge" — Inaugural Lecture
University of California, Irvine · October 3, 2002
"Artificial Intensity (AI)"
Northwestern University Center for Art and Technology Colloquium · Evanston, Illinois · October 18, 2002
"Undoing Forgetfulness" — Keynote Address
16th Annual National Conference on Liberal Arts and Education of Artists · New York, New York · October 23, 2002
"Matters of Mind" — Panelist
School of Visual Arts · New York, New York · October 24, 2002
"Polyopticality and the Limitations of the Hockney Debates"
History of Science Society Annual Conference: "Crossing Borders" · November 7, 2002