Hannah Higgins - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Hannah Higgins

Art Journal, 2006

Meaningful connections between disciplines and discourses, human values and environmental issues,... more Meaningful connections between disciplines and discourses, human values and environmental issues, and the role and relationship of art to ecological concerns describe Eco-tistical Art, a daylong series of events and conversations that took place during the 2005 Annual Conference of the College Art Association. The event was organized by author and environmentalist Linda Weintraub, who applied the principles of ecosystems to the format of the initiative. The typical convention format of discrete papers and panels was exchanged for the alchemy of multiple voices and positions with planned and fortuitous exchanges. Gathered here in Art Journal is a series of “field reports”—texts by respondents to artists' projects and presentations, background information on historical and contemporary environmental resources, and images of selected artists' projects. This collection of speculations and observations poses significant questions about the practices of art in a world poised, as the artist Beaumont suggests, between the vestiges of an industrial revolution and emergent ideas of sustainability. With Linda Weintraub and the other participants in the forum, we extend our thanks to Creative Capital for its generous support of this initiative.

On Curating, 2021

Although the Fluxus art (non-)movement is often read as a historical phenomenon, the breadth of i... more Although the Fluxus art (non-)movement is often read as a historical phenomenon, the breadth of its innovations and complexities actively thwarts linear and circumscribed viewpoints. The notion of Fluxus incorporates contradiction in challenging and enduringly generative ways. More than five decades after its emergence, this special issue of OnCurating entitled Fluxus Perspectives seeks to re-examine the influence, roles, and effects of Fluxus via a wide range of scholarly perspectives. The editors Martin Patrick and Dorothee Richter asked notable writers from different locations, generations, and viewpoints, all of whom having written about Fluxus before, to offer their thoughts on its significance, particularly in relation to contemporary art. With its emphasis upon events, festivals, and exhibitions, Fluxus may also be interpreted as an important, prescient forerunner of contemporary strategies of curating. Contributions by Simon Anderson, Jordan Carter, Kevin Concannon, Ken Friedman, Natilee Harren, John Held, Jr., Hannah B Higgins, Hanna B. Hölling, Natasha Lushetich, Billie Maciunas, Peter van der Meijden, Ann Noël, Martin Patrick, Dorothee Richter, Henar Rivière, Julia Robinson, Owen F. Smith, Weronika Trojanska, and Emmett Williams.

Mainframe Experimentalism, 2012

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2002

This article argues for the cross-modal nature of intermedial perception particularly as it appli... more This article argues for the cross-modal nature of intermedial perception particularly as it applies to Fluxus Events. Perception is both cultural and physiological. As such it has the ability to physically and conceptually link human beings to their environments. The admittedly brief survey of Events described here moves 'across the sensory' from sound to text to image, smell and proprioception. As an international phenomenon, Fluxus and its experiential dimension have implications for what Walter Ong calls the global sensorium.

Journal of Surgical Research, 2004

Mainframe Experimentalism

Emblematic of modernity, the grid is the underlying form of everything from skyscrapers and offic... more Emblematic of modernity, the grid is the underlying form of everything from skyscrapers and office cubicles to paintings by Mondrian and a piece of computer code. And yet, as Hannah Higgins makes clear in this engaging and evocative book, the grid has a history that long predates modernity; it is the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. In The Grid Book, Higgins examines the history of ten grids that changed the world: the brick, the tablet, the gridiron city plan, the map, musical notation, the ledger, the screen, moveable type, the manufactured box, and the net. Charting the evolution of each grid, from the Paleolithic brick of ancient Mesopotamia through the virtual connections of the Internet, Higgins demonstrates that once a grid is invented, it may bend, crumble, or shatter, but its organizing principle never disappears. The appearance of each grid was a watershed event. Brick, tablet, and city gridiron made possible sturdy housing, the standardization of langua...

A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age

Art Journal, 2006

Meaningful connections between disciplines and discourses, human values and environmental issues,... more Meaningful connections between disciplines and discourses, human values and environmental issues, and the role and relationship of art to ecological concerns describe Eco-tistical Art, a daylong series of events and conversations that took place during the 2005 Annual Conference of the College Art Association. The event was organized by author and environmentalist Linda Weintraub, who applied the principles of ecosystems to the format of the initiative. The typical convention format of discrete papers and panels was exchanged for the alchemy of multiple voices and positions with planned and fortuitous exchanges. Gathered here in Art Journal is a series of “field reports”—texts by respondents to artists' projects and presentations, background information on historical and contemporary environmental resources, and images of selected artists' projects. This collection of speculations and observations poses significant questions about the practices of art in a world poised, as the artist Beaumont suggests, between the vestiges of an industrial revolution and emergent ideas of sustainability. With Linda Weintraub and the other participants in the forum, we extend our thanks to Creative Capital for its generous support of this initiative.

On Curating, 2021

Although the Fluxus art (non-)movement is often read as a historical phenomenon, the breadth of i... more Although the Fluxus art (non-)movement is often read as a historical phenomenon, the breadth of its innovations and complexities actively thwarts linear and circumscribed viewpoints. The notion of Fluxus incorporates contradiction in challenging and enduringly generative ways. More than five decades after its emergence, this special issue of OnCurating entitled Fluxus Perspectives seeks to re-examine the influence, roles, and effects of Fluxus via a wide range of scholarly perspectives. The editors Martin Patrick and Dorothee Richter asked notable writers from different locations, generations, and viewpoints, all of whom having written about Fluxus before, to offer their thoughts on its significance, particularly in relation to contemporary art. With its emphasis upon events, festivals, and exhibitions, Fluxus may also be interpreted as an important, prescient forerunner of contemporary strategies of curating. Contributions by Simon Anderson, Jordan Carter, Kevin Concannon, Ken Friedman, Natilee Harren, John Held, Jr., Hannah B Higgins, Hanna B. Hölling, Natasha Lushetich, Billie Maciunas, Peter van der Meijden, Ann Noël, Martin Patrick, Dorothee Richter, Henar Rivière, Julia Robinson, Owen F. Smith, Weronika Trojanska, and Emmett Williams.

Mainframe Experimentalism, 2012

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2002

This article argues for the cross-modal nature of intermedial perception particularly as it appli... more This article argues for the cross-modal nature of intermedial perception particularly as it applies to Fluxus Events. Perception is both cultural and physiological. As such it has the ability to physically and conceptually link human beings to their environments. The admittedly brief survey of Events described here moves 'across the sensory' from sound to text to image, smell and proprioception. As an international phenomenon, Fluxus and its experiential dimension have implications for what Walter Ong calls the global sensorium.

Journal of Surgical Research, 2004

Mainframe Experimentalism

Emblematic of modernity, the grid is the underlying form of everything from skyscrapers and offic... more Emblematic of modernity, the grid is the underlying form of everything from skyscrapers and office cubicles to paintings by Mondrian and a piece of computer code. And yet, as Hannah Higgins makes clear in this engaging and evocative book, the grid has a history that long predates modernity; it is the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. In The Grid Book, Higgins examines the history of ten grids that changed the world: the brick, the tablet, the gridiron city plan, the map, musical notation, the ledger, the screen, moveable type, the manufactured box, and the net. Charting the evolution of each grid, from the Paleolithic brick of ancient Mesopotamia through the virtual connections of the Internet, Higgins demonstrates that once a grid is invented, it may bend, crumble, or shatter, but its organizing principle never disappears. The appearance of each grid was a watershed event. Brick, tablet, and city gridiron made possible sturdy housing, the standardization of langua...

A Cultural History of the Senses in the Modern Age