From Storms to Stars: Materiality and Visualizations of the Sky

Research Seminar

  • Public event without registration
  • Date: Mar 11, 2025
  • Time: 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Omar W. Nasim and Nicholas Robbins
  • Location: Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rome and online
  • Contact: katja.hackstein@biblhertz.it
From Storms to Stars: Materiality and Visualizations of the Sky
“Waves. Order 1: drawn by themselves.” In Report of the Fourteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (London, 1845)
How do we capture the ever-changing nature of the sky? This research seminar examines the different strategies artists and scientists have used to visualize the terrestrial and celestial sky.

The two speakers, a historian of science and a historian of art, focus on the material aspect of representation – how hands, ink, cameras, telescopes, and paint constructed the visualization, registration, and preservation of the sky. The physical presence of various scientific and artistic instruments and materials, as well as the labors performed with them, highlights how intermedial practices were central to establishing new knowledge and understanding of the sky.


Omar W. Nasim is a Professor for the History of Science at the University of Regensburg (Germany).

Nicholas Robbins is a Lecturer in British Art 1700-1900 in the History of Art at University College London.

Participation online possible on our Vimeo Platform. The link will be published soon here.


Scientific Organization: Odile Lehnen and Jennifer Marine

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