Bruno Latour’s ‘modes of existence’ and the Crace collections of design and topography, 1815–1915.

Evans, John (2024) Bruno Latour’s ‘modes of existence’ and the Crace collections of design and topography, 1815–1915. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis examines thirty examples of visual material collected by three generations of the Crace family between 1815–1915. While the Craces are best known for their decorative work for aristocratic clients and high-profile government projects, the three generations discussed also pursued other interests that can be traced through these objects. The topographic images related to London assembled by Frederick Crace have been consulted in the British Museum and the British Library. Frederick held a position in the unreformed Westminster Commission of Sewers for his adult working life. His son John Gregory Crace was responsible for the expansion of the firm and publicised his father’s collection through cataloguing and exhibition before its sale. Frederick’s grandson John Dibblee Crace travelled in Europe and the Middle East recording architecture in watercolours used to illustrate lectures on his return to London. He was also a member and later Secretary of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

In five chapters the results of the archival research are divided between objects, subjects, collectives, the economy, and institutions. Each is made up of three sections, based on a ‘mode of existence’. Modes are related to speech acts – true or false in their own way – that construct separate worlds. The term and the modal structure are adapted from Bruno Latour’s recent Inquiry (2013), a refinement of the earlier Actor-network theory. Applying this version of Latour’s method to topographical collecting is original, expanding the traditional uses of referential visual material in art historical writing. The study argues that topographical collections are hybrids, revealing of subject/object relations and the changing role played by institutions over time. The limitations of the method when applied to these case studies, and the question of the status of the researcher within networks are reflected upon in the conclusion.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies (former - to 2024)
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	25 Sep 2024 12:46
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2024 12:46
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/96806
DOI:

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