Symposium: Presence vs. Meaning: Making Sense and/or Sensing the Made

Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen is arranging a three-part 
symposium over three days (17-19 April, 2007) on the notion of 'presence'.

In the last couple of years several scholars in the humanities, like Hans 
Ulrich Gumbrecht and Eelco Runia, have contributed to our understanding of 
the conceptual distinction between 'meaning' and 'presence'. The distinction 
is especially interesting for science, technology and medicine museological 
practices and for the understanding of the field of public engagement with 
health and life sciences.

Much of what has been going on in science museum exhibitions in the last 
decades can be broadly described in terms of 'production of meaning', i.e., 
historical and cultural interpretations and contextualisations of objects, 
images and documents. Against these entrenched practices some museologists 
now emphasise the 'production of presence', i.e., the importance of 
establishing a more direct sensual relation with objects, images and texts.

The symposium focuses on the theoretical aspects of the 'presence'/'meaning' 
distinction and its importance for the humanities and aesthetic subjects, 
and is divided into three independent sessions:

1) Research seminar (arranged in co-operation with the Schools of Visual 
Arts, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts), Tuesday 17 April, 14-16, 
Medical Museion, Fredericiagade 18, 1st floor, Copenhagen.

Jens Hauser (Paris): "Presence versus Representation - an approach to art 
involving live/life biotechnology"

Jens Hauser is an independent artist, writer and exhibition curator who 
focuses on the interaction between art and biotechnology. He has, among 
other things, organised the collective exhibition "L'Art Biotech" at the 
National Centre of Arts and Culture in Nantes (France). His next exhibition 
is about skin as a technological interface.


2) Public lecture, Wednesday 18 April, 15-17, Medical Museion auditorium, 
Bredgade 62, Copenhagen.

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (Albert Guérard Professor in Literature, Department of 
Comparative Literature, Stanford University): "Do Productions of Presence 
Yield a Presence Culture? A Retrospective"

In *Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey* (Stanford University 
Press, 2004), Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht claims that the humanities' focus on 
interpretation and the reconstruction of meaning has resulted in a "loss of 
the world" and that we are no longer "in contact with the tings in the 
world". What meaning cannot convey is the effects of "presence" and the 
different ways that cultural phenomena affect our senses and bodies.


3) Workshop "Making Sense or Sensing the Made: Rendering the World through 
Collecting and Display", Thursday 19 April, 10-13 (max. 25 participants)

Short presentations by Adam Bencard, Thomas Söderqvist, Dorthe Gert 
Simonsen, Camilla Mordhorst, Jens Hauser, and comments from Hans Ulrich 
Gumbrecht.

Inquiries to Thomas Söderqvist, [log in to unmask], www.corporeality.net/museion