[ecrea] CFP: Image Testimonies - Witnessing in Times of Social Media

/Gestures of Testimony: Torture, Trauma, and Affect in Literature. /New 
York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. http://bloomsbury.com/9781501315800/



*CALL FOR PAPERS: IMAGE TESTIMONIES – WITNESSING IN TIMES OF SOCIAL MEDIA
*
International Symposium hosted by the Collaborative Research Center 
“Affective Societies”, Project B01 “Affective Dynamics of Images in the 
Era of Social Media”, Free University Berlin

Date: July 13-15, 2017
Deadline for proposals: January 16, 2017

Recent political conflicts signal an increased proliferation of image 
testimonies shared widely via Social Media. Although witnessing with and 
through images is not a phenomenon of the internet era, image practices 
and politics in Social Media have significantly intensified the 
affective dynamics of image testimonies that are circulated in “real 
time” on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the like. New technology has 
enabled individuals to record, upload, and share images directly via 
mobile devices, which makes nearly everyone a potential witness. We seem 
to live in an “era of becoming a witness” (Givoni 2011) in which images 
play central roles. The causes and motivations for producing image 
testimonies are wide-ranging. Political activists use their mobile phone 
camera as a means of resistance, people directly affected by an event as 
well as bystanders might produce images spontaneously without clear 
intentions, out of voyeurism, to document their own involvement, or in 
order to raise awareness, etc. In the context of Web 2.0 communication 
image testimonies encompass a whole range of genres, such as images of 
street protests, police violence, or human rights violations and extend 
to selfie protests and even video testimonies of suicide bombers.

What exactly is being testified by these various forms of witnessing can 
only be studied from multiple perspectives and necessitates complicating 
the “truth-claims” that are made. Whereas testimonies such as images of 
human rights violations demand credibility as legal proofs, other forms 
of witnessing justify their “veracity” with a decidedly subjective 
perspective of being personally affected. Which different concepts of 
witnessing are at stake in image testimonies? Further questions concern 
the role of the body of the witness in relation to image witnessing and 
its connection to the concept of martyrdom, the role of aesthetics in 
claims of authenticity, or the status of image testimonies in their 
relation between giving and creating evidence.

Besides their claim to “show the truth” or their aim to confront with 
political problems, the special efficacy of these viral image genres of 
testimony seems to lie in their ability to affect, to move, or to 
mobilize. Witnessing, especially when unfolding in Social Media, needs 
to be defined as a collective and relational practice with the effect of 
forming communities, and provoking further image testimonies. Thus, the 
producers of images, the images, and the recipients find themselves in a 
dynamic relationship of affecting and being affected.

Against this backdrop the symposium seeks to contribute to the ongoing 
debate on the topic of testimony and witnessing. Whereas testimony and 
witnessing have been largely theorized within the framework of 
epistemological, philosophical, ethical, and media-theoretical 
perspectives we want to focus on the specific role of images and the 
context of Social Media. We especially welcome

proposals drawing from affect studies and emotion research in order to 
shape a new approach on testimony theory.

Contributions from all fields are welcome. Topics can include, but are 
not limited to:

• -  Image testimony as legal evidence

• -  Mediated witnessing and the role of the body

• -  Spectatorship and witnessing

• -  Aesthetics of witnessing

• -  Image testimonies and affect

Publication of the conference papers is planned. The conference language 
is English.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 3000 characters outlining your 
talk plus a short CV detailing your research interests in abbreviated 
form to: (kerstin.schankweiler /at/ fu-berlin.de) 
<mailto:(kerstin.schankweiler /at/ fu-berlin.de)> and 
(verena.straub /at/ fu-berlin.de) <http://berlin.de>.

Conception and Organization:
Kerstin Schankweiler, Verena Straub, Tobias Wendl

Free University Berlin
CRC 1171 Affective Societies
Project B01 “Affective Dynamics of Images in the Era of Social Media” 
Habelschwerdter Allee 45
D-14195 Berlin
Phone: 0049 (0)30 838 55214 www.sfb-affective-societies.de/en/index.html


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