Comments on: Letter From London: A Contemporary Timeline

By: Emily Liebert

Emily Liebert — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:05:17 +0000

The issue of timeline-branding is a great entrypoint to the fundamental question in teaching any sort of history: is time the best model for organizing information? It’s certainly the most straightforward and even if we don’t applaud Darwinian ideas about evolution, we can’t deny causality. But causality doesn’t have to be uncomplicated. How can you make something legible but complex, or as one of my professors out it, “simple but not simplistic”? How, in a class of a limited number of meetings, do you present a cohesive history while pointing to the problem of doing such a thing? Of course this is a question for artists as well: how to assert an idea while calling attention to the fact that this idea–like all ideas–is not the only or master idea?

One of the best reflections on these problems (for both the historian and the artist) is Silvia Kolbowski piece “An Inadequate History of Conceptual Art” (1998/99): http://www.silviakolbowski.com/projectDetail.cfm?id=2

By: Ben Street

Ben Street — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:45:37 +0000

Many thanks for your feedback, Susan. I’d love to hear more ideas about creating a contemporary timeline and will probably be posting more about this at some point…

Keep the comments coming!

By: organicsyes

organicsyes — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:55:50 +0000

Hi!
Have not stopped by in a while…thanks for this idea on time-lines.

I present tomorrow at a curriculum director’s meeting…the Jame’s Elkins timeline is a perfect fit for a visual…soooo much time spent with the linear…love to put something in front of administrators to get them contemplating other views.

thanks for this blog…I just love your inspiring posts!
Susan