[ecrea] call for papers: Decriminalising Ornament: The Pleasures of Pattern*

*Decriminalising Ornament: The Pleasures of Pattern**

The 9^th  International Illustration Research Symposium
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK
November 17-18^th , 2018

*/Ornament/* : a thing used or serving to make something look more 
attractive but usually having no practical purpose. Verb: to make 
(something) look more attractive by adding decorative items.

— The Oxford Living Dictionary (online)
“Ornament is no longer a natural product of its culture, and
therefore represents backwardness or even a degenerative tendency.”

—  Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime, 1908

In 1908 Alfred Loos declared ornament to be a  'backward' and 
'degenerate' activity, counter to the utopian, ‘rationalist’ aims of the 
modernist movement, and called for it to be criminalised. This 
puritanical stance towards the decorative can be seen as a historical 
echo of the protestant Reformation in Europe which conflated decorative 
imagery in churches with corruption and decadent idolatry; the 
whitewashing of devotional spaces enacted as a form of moral cleansing. 
In contrast to this fraught relationship with ornament, the Islamic 
tradition of non-representational art puts great store in the rhythm and 
mathematics of pattern to express transcendental truths.

This year's Illustration Research Symposiumseeks to draw together a 
range of perspectives on ornament and ornamentation, and its close 
relatives pattern and the decorative, to explore the 
resilience, continued value, significance, application, and creation of 
these cultural forms; celebrating their centrality within human life and 
cultural production, both past and present, and (speculatively), the future.

We invite papers that explore the cultural importance of pattern, 
ornament and decoration. We begin from the observation that what is so 
often missing is the significance  – the meaning – of ornament, which 
has become lost or eroded, but was once all-pervasive.

The multiple practice-based and theoretical lenses we will invite to 
explore the topic, are firmly situated within an expanded definition of 
illustration, as the place where ornament historically resides as a form 
of visual production. However, we also invite contributions 
which embrace the widest range of cultural, creative and technological 
perspectives on ornament, including applications of ‘the ornamental' 
found within design, typography, architecture, and ‘other’ contexts.

To decriminalise ornament, is to place it back at the centre of human 
life, and not at the margins, where it has too long been banished as 
an unwanted and non-functional excess; instead celebrating the pleasures 
of pattern, and our ongoing desire for the decorative.

/Topics include, but are not limited to, explorations of//:/

– Ornament and modernity

– Ornament as sensual excess

– Ornament as visual language

– Ornament and class

– Ornament as play

– Ornament and power

– Ornament as process

– Ornament as spiritual meditation

– Ornament and the body

– Ornament and Meaning

– Popular ornament

– Nature as ornament

– Digital ornament

/We also welcome practice-led presentations which engage with: /

– Creative practices which use ornament/pattern/decoration
as central elements.

– Practices which embrace contemporary and/or future uses
and/or reclamations of ornament/pattern/decoration.


*Deadline for all Submissions: Monday July 9th, 2018.**
**
*Please submit 300 word proposals, for a 20 minute presentation to:**

Dr. Sheena Calvert at (s.calvert /at/ csm.arts.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(s.calvert /at/ csm.arts.ac.uk)>
Desdemona McCannon at (d.mccannon /at/ mmu.ac.uk) <mailto:(d.mccannon /at/ mmu.ac.uk)>
Dr. Nanette Hoogslag at (nanette.hoogslag /at/ anglia.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(nanette.hoogslag /at/ anglia.ac.uk)>.

Please include your institutional affiliation, along with the theme 
(from the list above, or ‘other’), which your proposal is addressing.

Proposals for workshops/round-tables of 3 or more participants, 
and poster presentations are also welcome.

An exhibition of work on the topic of ornament/pattern/decoration will 
be curated and installed during the symposium. If you would like your 
work to be considered for inclusion, please send images of your work via 
a word document, with a maximum of 3 images and accompanied by a brief 
explanation of the project (300 words max). Please include name, title, 
and media. If selected, further submission details will be provided at a 
later date.

The full call for papers is also available at:

http://illustrationresearch.co.uk

* The phrase ‘Decriminalising Ornament. Was coined by Alice Twemlow in 
her article ‘The Decriminalisation of Ornament’, which was first 
published in /Eye/ no. 58 vol. 15, Winter 2005. It was reprinted 
in ‘Looking Closer 5’, eds. Beirut, Drenttel and Heller (Allworth Press, 
2006).

_http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/the-decriminalisation-of-ornament-full-text_
_
_
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