[ecrea] 9th NECS Workshop - forging: authenticity in the making

FORGING: AUTHENTICITY IN THE MAKING
Leiden, Netherlands, 14.-15. March 2014

9th NECS Graduate Workshop

Hosted by Leiden University and Leiden International Short Film Experience

Call for Papers (deadline: February 7th, 2014)

Forgery is the consciously deceiving replication of a product or a 
manner of production. Depending on its object, its counterpart could be 
authenticity, originality, integrity, and/or truthfulness. The latter 
are widespread values which tend to determine the judgement passed on 
products and producers, as well as rule considerations about groups and 
peoples who contextualise them and consume them. This matrix of 
assessment is not without complications, all the more when it comes to 
cultural products because they acquire worth on many levels 
simultaneously (aesthetic, ethic, political, technical, theological, 
teleological, etc). In addition to that, the ease to reproduce, emulate 
and replicate, provided by professional devices and lay customer 
gadgets, makes cultural evaluation of forging even more intricate. This 
workshop aims to dwell on the matter as regards audiovisual artefacts, 
with an emphasis on cinema. On which grounds should we praise or condemn 
forged movies/videos, their makers and their audiences? Is the matrix of 
values above actually tenable? Can individual and collective identities 
subsist within / exist without some forging? We invite papers that 
address the workshop theme from different stances, including (not 
limited to) the following:

Forging the maker

Authentic artists, authentic filmmakers: self-expression and integrity, 
commoditisation and entertainment, symbolic ambitions and practical 
needs. Posers or die-hards.

Filmmakers as theorists on artistic forging, e.g. Banksy’s Exit Through 
the Gift Shop, Orson Welles’ F for Fake. Taking a stance through 
audiovisual discourse.

‘Replica’ construction: forging aesthetics vs. aesthetics of forging; 
imitation vs. originality; copycat mimesis vs. creative sampling. Can 
modernist or postmodernist perspectives help us figure out replication?



Forging the audience

Politics of forging: fictitious audiences, concepts of ‘nationalism’, 
‘folk’, ‘tradition’, and (geo-localised) ‘style’. Is the burden of 
history a product of forging?

Concoction of online/offline personae. Filmmaking audiences and 
self-forging. Handheld technologies of forging in times of social media 
preponderance.

Forging cultural conglomerates and collective identities. Prescription 
of normative frameworks –questions of gender, ethnicity and creed. 
Post-colonial and critical theories on media culture. Hegemonic world 
pictures and alternative (cyber) spaces.



Forging the product

Make believe to un-believe: how do we know if something is fake? From 
false emotion in a performance through to digital clones and SFX.

The actual value of forged works: artistic, aesthetic, monetary, 
symbolic. Multi-level judgement of cinematic works. Conflated grounds of 
assessment.

Ethical perspectives on forgery. Moral philosophy and law. Legal 
frameworks, liability, intellectual property, copyright. Boundaries and 
blind spots.

Mockumentaries, documentaries, news, and lies: unreliable sources about 
the past and the present. Concealed dissociations between reality and 
the moving image. Reality, hyper-reality, and unreality.

Submissions deadline: February 7th, 2014

Please address abstracts (300-500 words) along with institutional 
affiliation and brief biographical note to: (graduates /at/ necs.org) 
Notification will follow shortly thereafter.

The conference language is English.

Participants will need to cover their own travel and accommodation 
expenses. Travel information as well as a list of affordable hotels and 
other accommodation will be provided in January.

Conference attendance is free, but valid NECS-membership is required to 
participate.
Participants must register with NECS at www.necs.org and pay their fee 
by February 1st. For the terms of NECS membership, please also refer to 
our website.

Organization:

Carlos Miguel Roos (Leiden University/Ghent University), Chris de 
Selincourt (University of the Arts, London), Gavin Wilson (York St John 
University)

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