BAA Annual Lecture Series

Thumbnails, or A Digital Wild Goose Chase

Jack Hartnell

Head of Research at the National Gallery, London

Society of Antiquaries of London & Online

Wednesday, 1 April 2026, 5:00pm

Tea is served from 5 p.m. and the Chair is taken at 5.30 p.m. 

As medieval manuscripts make their way into increasingly diverse parts of our digital visual ecosystem, they leave palimpsests of technologies past and the people who once operated them. This talk goes in search of a single finger, but finds instead a complex world of lost photographic labour at the boundaries of the page.

The lectures are open to all; non-members are welcome to attend occasional lectures but are asked to make themselves known to the Hon Director on arrival, and to sign the visitors book.

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