The ‘Art and the Limits of Perception’ conference brought together aestheticians and philosophers of perception, with arts practitioners (as discussants at large), to explore how thinking about art might help illuminate the limits of perception. The conference was held over two days, April 24th-25th 2017, at King’s Manor, University of York. It was held under the auspices of SPIN (Sense Perception in the North), a group of philosophers of perception at the Universities of Durham, Leeds and York.

Our speakers and titles were:
• Maarten Steenhagen (Cambridge). Models of sound reproduction.
• Jenny Judge (NYU). The surprising thing about musical surprise.
• Bence Nanay (Antwerp). Global aesthetics.
• Anya Farennikova (Bristol). Art of absence.
• Cain Todd (Lancaster). Transparency, imagination, and time in aesthetic experience.
• Dawn Wilson (Hull). Seeing what things look like photographed.
• Catharine Abell (Manchester). Depiction, systems of representation and resemblance.

Our discussants at large were Martin Whelton (Reader in Theatre and Performance at Queen Mary, London), Debbie Bowers (an artist based in Newcastle who works with film and print making), and Wendy Law (arts consultant).

The conference was well attended, productive and enjoyable. As one of our discussants at large put it, ‘The days provided a fascinating insight in to the philosophical approach… so very different to that of the art world and it is always good to be taken out of the comfort zone of one’s own discipline.’

Louise Richardson