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the role of technology
in illustration

Symposium
Call for Papers & Posters
APPARATUS:
15th international research symposium
ILLUSTRATION & HERITAGE: Sharing Histories to Draw Out Futures
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On 22 and 23 November 2024, the 14th Annual International Illustration Research Symposium explored the role illustration plays in cultural heritage: Illustration & Heritage: Sharing Histories to Draw Out Futures
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We invite submissions of full manuscripts or expressions of interest (300 word abstract) from those who have participated at the symposium, in any capacity, and from those who are inspired by the themes. Please consider the submission of articles, research, critical and visual essays based on practice-based research on the diverse ways illustration and heritage are connected.
Call for Papers
Next
symposium
APPARATUS: THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN ILLUSTRATION
15TH INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM
21–22 NOVEMBER 2025, KOÇ UNIVERSITY, ISTANBUL
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Machines, appliances, gizmos, and contraptions have always been a part of illustration, enabling illustrators to transform their thoughts into real-life forms. The machine’s abilities, aesthetics, and impacts on humanity have always been a source of inspiration and concern. With the discussion raging around artificial intelligence as a game-changing technology, and when computers seem to inextricably serve as parts of creation and of our lives, perhaps it is time to take stock and consider the long-established but fluctuating relationship between illustration and the machine.

Latest issue
This journal presents papers resulting from the international collaboration, and artistic research project Illuminating the Non-Representable, coordinated and led by professor of illustration, Hilde Kramer.

This cross disciplinary project, over a period of 3 years, delivered a range of symposia and projects exploring the boundaries of representation now and in the past, but also the role of illustration in breaking taboos or revealing truths. The project brought a wealth of papers resulting in Volume 11 consisting of two issues (issue 2 out early 2025)
NEWS
The painful-looking thorned pencil pictured evokes a contradiction: to draw or not to draw, for doing so will surely incur pain. Its maker, Hilde Kramer, said, ‘I had made it many years ago without any plan, just as a surreal object, and it was one of the inspirations for why I thought investigating 3D objects could be a good idea’. Eventually, War Pencilwould be included among other object illustrations (3D representations) and soundworks to illuminate ‘the dark mechanisms and traumas of war’. These works were part of a remarkable multi-year research programme that Kramer began orchestrating in 2018: Illuminating the Non-Representable: Exploring Artistic, Ethical and Authorial Challenges through Research in Illustration (IN-R). Portions of this research series comprise two special issues of Volume 11 of the Journal of Illustration. Read more>>>
Open access materials
Preface to the first Special Issue
by Jaleen Grove
EDITORIAL:
Illuminating
the Non-Representable
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