[ecrea] CfP Photography and Visual Cultures in the 21st Century - Roma Tre University, Italy

International Conference

Photography and Visual Cultures in the 21st Century: Italy and the 
Iconic turn
Rome, Italy - 4-5 December 2014
Palladium Theatre, Roma Tre University

CALL FOR PAPERS

Photography and Film are still conceived as two separate entities in 
most Italian academic studies, sometimes tracing a genealogy between 
these two media, still considering them as different forms of visual 
representation due to the heavy burden of the classical humanistic 
tradition. In the international theoretical and cultural debate, 
differently, new methods emerge at the beginning of the 21st Century – 
in a meaningful temporal convergence with the growing hegemony of 
digital cultures and languages. Leaving aside ontological assumptions, 
these new perspectives outline instead a wider "iconic turn", proposing 
it as a necessary synthesis to account for several different artistic, 
medial and cultural issues, marking their distance from any alphabetical 
logos.
Many theorists, such as Belting, Freedberg, Mitchell, Crary, Boehm, 
reflect on the multifarious shaping of visual culture not only from a 
comparative standpoint, but from a simultaneous one. Such an angle is 
the only one that allows the deep metamorphoses introduced by visual and 
audio-visual media in the realm of art to clearly come to light – so to 
fully comprehend blurring borders between "high" and "low" cultures that 
characterized the 20th Century.
Photography, as it produces a still and static image, condenses events 
and ideas; it proves therefore to be the true cradle of contemporary 
visual cultures and a seminal stage in their development, contributing 
in a substantial way to the dismantling of all fixed and firm identities 
that permeates characterizes the increasingly secularized modern world. 
The ability to spread everywhere, through endless reproducibility and 
the multiple layers of vision they activate, places the photographic 
images of objects and phenomena, of spaces and geographies, of people 
and social bodies at the core of modernity. The immense effects of these 
mobile simulacra on the construction of subjectivity couldn't possibly 
be over-emphasized powerfully contributed to widening the range of 
available sensations and to the the articulation of a new sensorial 
culture (Benjamin, Kracauer, Hansen). Photography establishes a new 
regime of perception that goes beyond the cognitive and conscious 
register, and entails a vast array of emotions, sentiments, fantasies, 
visions; this regime also endows audiences with the possibility to 
confront with modernity in its most conflicting aspects. Placing itself 
at the metaphorical crossroad between the society of spectacle and that 
of surveillance, photography displays at the same time, with its 
manifold potential, both the oppressive and the liberating qualities of 
modern society and of its technical and cultural development.
Our Conference's aim is to explore the centrality of photography and its 
indissoluble link with cinema within the scopic regimes of modernity and 
of our century. Enhancing the interdisciplinary value of visuality, the 
Conference intends to overcome the specificity of each medium, finally 
and fully underlining their protean dimension. The choice to address a 
wide temporal frame, focusing on both past scenarios and contemporary 
scapes, stems from the consolidated awareness of the essential 
interactions between different chronological phases – be it through 
forms of prefiguration, of endless interlacing of anachronisms (Warburg, 
Didi-Huberman), of re-working and cross-media remediation 
(Bolter-Grušin, Jenkins). The photographic image's connection to memory 
and history makes it not only a fundamental historical source (as it has 
been proved), but also an index and a trace of the present.
The Conference will focus primarily on Italy and on the state of the 
studies in our country; of course in a wider perspective, so that 
international contributions are very welcomed. It aims to empower a most 
needed reflection on the role of visual cultures in the construction of 
national identities, both in an individual and a collective perspective.

Proposed papers should focus also – but not exclusively – on the 
following topics:

· Theoretical reflection about the aesthetic and cultural relations 
between photography, cinema, and other visual media; also locating the 
fragmented panorama of exchanges and crossings, beginning from the 
second half of 19th Century, within the international context.

· Photography Studies in Italy in their relation with visual cultures 
and in a comparative perspective.

· Use of photography in film and performing arts (i.e. documentation of 
the research for filming locations, of the work on the set, and of live 
performances).

· Photographic footage, reportage and their role in the production of 
news, documentaries, feature films, with a particular attention to 
cinematographic press, photographic magazines and photo-stories, 
addressing the linkages among photography, cinematic myths, stardom, and 
the female image they mould.

· Contribution of photography to the construction of landscape, both 
rural and urban, and to the affective configuration of lived spaces and 
emotional geographies.

· Amateur photography as a social practice for the construction of 
individual, familial and collective identities, and its contemporary 
evolution in social media – a context in which images are invested with 
ever-growing importance, as tools for representation and 
self-representation, for the re-actualization of shared memories, and 
for collective action.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Francesco Casetti (Yale University), Mary 
Ann Doane (University of California, Berkeley), Philippe Dubois 
(Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris III).

Official Languages of the Conference: Italian and English.

We will consider every proposal (300-500 words), with 5 keywords and a 
brief biography of the proponent, sent before September 15th, 2014, by 
email, to (fotografia /at/ uniroma3.it) <mailto:(fotografia /at/ uniroma3.it)>. 
Selection's results will be announced before October 5th.

For more informations: http://www.mediastudies.it/spip.php?article376