Thinking 3D: three-dimensionality and its impact on the arts and sciences

Thinking 3D is

• an interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of three-dimensionality and its impact on the arts and sciences; 
• an innovative project which puts the minds of the 21st century in touch with those of early practitioners exploring three-dimensionality; 
• a year-long series of exhibitions, events, public talks, gallery shows, and academic symposia intended to incite dialogue between artists, art and book historians, mathematicians, astronomers, geometers, earth scientists, botanists, chemists, etc. 

The project is centred on the development of the techniques used to communicate three-dimensional forms in two-dimensional media.

The representation of truthful three-dimensional forms during the Renaissance became a skill to practice, and its successful completion was considered a virtuoso display of talent. As reliable two-dimensional illustrations of three-dimensional subjects became more prevalent it also impacted the way that disciplines developed: architecture could be communicated much more clearly, mathematical concepts and astronomical observations could be quickly relayed, observations of the natural world moved towards a more realistic method of depiction.

Thinking 3D will put the 21st century mind in touch with the legacy of some of the greatest artists and thinkers (Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Andreas Vesalius, Johannes Hevelius, John Aubrey, William Hunter, etc.) through the medium of books, manuscripts, prints and drawings, offering a cluster of exhibitions and events, which will tell the story of the communication of three-dimensionality and the impact that the developments of related techniques had on artists and draughtsman throughout time and across space.

This theme is of great relevance today, as amateur and professional designers are constantly thinking about how to communicate three-dimensional forms in traditional media or by using computer software and 3D printing.

This a pan-Oxford season of events with the heart of the project constituted by a main exhibition at the Treasury of the Bodleian Libraries (in the Weston Library). It will be surrounded by a group of satellite exhibitions and supported by a series of conferences, talks and workshops. Exhibitions across the University and city will display books, manuscripts, prints and drawings from various local collections, loans from other institutions, reproductions of works of art which will enhance the understanding of the concept, and original pieces commissioned to contemporary designers and artists who will take direct inspiration from the items on show.

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Encountering Africa: Henri Gaden's Life and Photography in Colonial French West Africa, 1894-1939

Reproduced with the permission of the
Archives nationales d'outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence, France

Henri Gaden was a French Colonial officer, who lived in West Africa for 45 years. An ethnographer, linguist and gifted photographer, Gaden captured on camera a rich variety of encounters with Africa – from landscapes, architecture and trade to military campaigns and colonial life at numerous outposts. He also documented everyday village life, local music, dance and ritual. Gaden’s striking photographic images, exhibited for the first time at MUSA, provide rare insights into French West Africa in colonial times and the remarkable people he met.

Exhibition at MUSA
5 October 2017–25 February 2018
7a The Scores, St Andrews, KY16 9AR

Daniele Barbaro (1514-70): In and Beyond the Text

The Venetian patrician, Daniele Barbaro, was one of the greatest intellectuals of his time and a prominent patron of artists and scholars, such as Palladio, Veronese and Titian. A complex and multi-faceted personality, he published several books and left unpublished writings on a range of subjects, including philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, optics, history, music, and architecture.

Paolo Veronese, Portrait of Daniele Barbaro, 1556-67, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

The International Network, Daniele Barbaro (1514-70): In and Beyond the Text, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, project partners University of St Andrews, Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours, and Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, puts Barbaro under the lens of his writings, and adopting a cross-disciplinary approach it provides a reassessment of this figure in the context of the European Renaissance on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of his birth.

The project, co-ordinated by Dr Laura Moretti, of the School of Art History, started on the 1st of February 2014 and will end on the 31st of January 2016. The project partners are the University of St Andrews, the Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours, and the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice.

A recent exhibition of the work (University of St Andrews, 4-5 September 2014) set up in parallel with a workshop on Barbaro’s manuscripts and printed works, his relation with printers, and the context of book printing in sixteenth-century Venice (see the exhibition catalogue for further information). 

A major exhibition of the work opens in Venice on the 10th of January in the Salone Sansoviniano of the Marciana Library.

Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story

From 13 February to 28 September 2014 a new exhibit will be on show at the Natural History Museum, London that highlights some of the (literally) ground-breaking research undertaken by scientists from St Andrews and elsewhere in the UK as part of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project of the last 10 years. Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story presents key material and evidence from a number of important sites in and around the UK that help to document the dramatic story of changing landscapes and the people who lived in them over the last million years. Two of the sites that this major exhibition showcases have been the focus of research for Dr Richard Bates of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences for the past 5 years. At La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey, high resolution marine mapping combined with geophysical modelling is allowing archaeologists to 'drain' away the sea and literally step back in time to walk through the ancient landscapes. The new views from the mammoth butchery cave site are providing alternate context for understanding the prolific finds that have been dug from the site over the last century. At Happisburgh in Norfolk, geophysical surveys are not only revealing the hidden landscape but are also being used to target direct archaeological investigation. This is already showing dividends with new discoveries giving a unique perspective on the people who walked the ancient river shores over 800,000 years ago.

Mammoth butchery cave site at La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey

A Royal Foundation: 400 Years of the King James Library

The current exhibition at the Gateway Galleries, A Royal Foundation: 400 Years of the King James Library, explores the foundation and early years of the Library through the beautiful and inspiring books, manuscripts and artefacts associated with it.

In 1612, James VI founded the University Library in St Andrews. His family, Queen Anne, Prince Henry, Prince Charles (later Charles I) and Princess Elizabeth (later Queen of Bohemia), donated a fascinating collection of 228 works. The Library became an important centre for research and scholarship, housing scientific instruments and 'curiosities', as well as written material. This exhibition explores the foundation and early years of the Library through the beautiful and inspiring books, manuscripts and artefacts associated with it.

Gateway Galleries, North Haugh, St Andrews 
Continues to Saturday 8 December

Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2012: Drowned Landscapes

A virtual visualisation of an Agent Based model of life in
the Mesolithic on the Doggerbank.
Credit: Dr. Eugene Ch'ng, University of Birmingham

An exhibit proposed by Dr Richard Bates of the Department of Earth Sciences, Europe’s Lost World: The Drowned Landscapes of the North Sea, will form part of the 2012 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London, 3–8 July 2012. The exhibit is a joint venture with scientists at the University of Birmingham, the University of Wales Trinity St David and the University of Aberdeen.  

After the end of the last Ice Age extensive landscapes that had once been home to thousands of people were inundated by the sea. This exhibit explores those drowned landscapes around the UK and shows how they are being rediscovered through pioneering scientific research. It reveals their human story through the artefacts left by the people - a story of a dramatic past that featured lost lands, devastating tsunamis and massive climate change.

The exhibit follows a number of successful geophysical archaeology projects sponsored by NERC, English Heritage, HistoricScotland, The Crown Estates and Aggregate Industries that have mapped the now submerged palaeo-landscapes known as Doggerland. Scientists have coupled geophysical survey techniques developed by the oil industry with 3D visualisation technologies developed by the computer modelling industry to recreat these once inhabited landscapes, mapping rivers, lakes, hills, coastlines and estuaries, and to model the flora and fauna associated with them. These models bring back to life the homeland of the Mesolithic populations that once lived there. [related blog] [press release] [more]

Seeing in a Wider Sense

"Seeing in a Wider Sense" is an exhibition, at the St Andrews Museum, which brings together distinguished Fife based artists Will Maclean and Marian Leven with two members of the Department of Social Anthropology, Dr Stephanie Bunn and Professor Peter Gow.

Both artists and anthropologists reveal aspects of human interaction through their work. They aim to lead the audience to explore and understand aspects of modes of living, such as hunting, herding or fishing, from visual and anthropological perspectives. Artwork and artefacts from Fife, Lewis, the Amazon and Tian Shan provide a starting point for dialogue between disciplines.

The exhibition runs through mid-March as part of the University's 600th Anniversary celebrations.

Elements of Genius - 200 years of Chemistry at St Andrews

An exhibition, 'Elements of Genius: The Legacy of Chemistry in St Andrews' is currently on display at the Gateway Galleries. Coinciding with the 200-year anniversary of chemistry teaching at the University of St Andrews and the International Year of Chemistry 2011, it examines various significant contributions of many of the distinguished chemists from the School of Chemistry during its long history.
The student-hosted exhibition runs from the 19th March to the 21st May, with special events on in April and May. Admission is free.