Sepia: Biotic Media and Ocean Worlds, a talk by Maggie Cao

Sepia is a term used to describe inks of a rich, brown color, but few know that this artistic usage is taken from the animal world, where Sepia refers to a genus of cuttlefish—a nod to the long history of extracting melanin fluid from cephalopods for drawing and writing. This talk uses cuttlefish ink as a vehicle for rethinking human-ocean relations in the mid nineteenth century, tracing flows between Victor Hugo’s maritime drawings made in the Channel Islands to paleontological discoveries and scientific illustrations on nearby coastlines. During the nineteenth century, the expansion of fisheries and the growth of marine biology fostered public interest in the strangeness of cephalopods, or “devil fish,” whose inkiness was associated with artistic creation. Experiments with biotic media, the talk argues, were efforts to conceptualize the nonhuman environment of the ocean.
—
ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– Located in Porter College Rm. D245
—
PARKING
– Lot 124 & 125 are the closest parking lots to the event.
– Parking is by permit or ParkMobile.
– Refer to TAPS for more parking information.
—
This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.