(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)
Abstract
This talk looks at the role that the design of hats plays in the Paleolithic beginnings of conceptual thinking where the idea of “design,” “organization” and “representation” began, creating one of the most perfect amalgams of the intangible and the tangible. Humans’ conceptual thinking is considered to have prodigiously advanced between 100,000 and 40,000 BCE, a period known in anthropology as the “Creative Explosion.” In this era the first human designs are found in a plethora of geometric patterns (such as circles, squares, spirals) carved on rock surfaces. Paleolithic experts have described this period as “synonymous with modern thinking” because it is “symbolic thinking.” This links the geometric form with the onset of organizational thinking and its symbolic representations. I argue that the hat form, which to this day is based in generic geometric forms such as the circle, square and triangle is an outcome of the symbolic thinking that emerged during the Creative Explosion as geometric forms. The hat was worn at least as early 30,000 BCE where it appeared on small naked carved female figurines in the shape of a semi-circular skullcap and arguably acts as a material object of symbolic meaning. Today, that same skullcap form still stands for organization and representation in governance and religion, to name a few categories, as do many hats. This talk examines this phenomenon of connection.
Drake Stutesman is an adjunct professor at New York University, in the Department of Art and Art Professions. She is the Senior Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Framework and the author of the cultural histories Hat: Origin, Language, Style (Reaktion Books, 2019) and Snake (Reaktion Books, 2005). She co-edited Film, Fashion and 1960s (IUP, 2018) and has had work published by, among others, the British Film Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Museum of Modern Art (New York) and Koenig Books. She is the Future President of Women’s Film History International [2022-2024] and on the board of the Fort Lee Film Commission. She has acted as a programmer and curator in a number of venues and recently curated a costume exhibit for the soon to be opened Barrymore Film Center, in the USA. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex and an M.A. from the University of London. She has taught in prison and worked at Aalto University, University of Stockholm, and the Pratt Institute, among other venues. She is currently working on a book about secret representations of American violence.