[ecrea] Helsinki Photomedia 2016 Call for Papers

*Call for Papers*

**

*HELSINKI PHOTOMEDIA 2016*

The third international photography research conference

March 30, 2016 – April 1, 2016

Organized by Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture,
University of the Arts/Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki and University of
Tampere.

*Theme: Photographic Agencies and Materialities***

*Keynote Speakers:*

Geoffrey Batchen (New Zealand)

Annika von Hausswolff (Sweden)

Liz Wells (UK)

*
*

*As a new feature, Helsinki Photomedia 2016 introduces the Photographic
Education conference panel for presenting education related research and
projects under the conference theme.*

*Deadline for 500 word abstracts: 1 September 2015 *

http://helsinkiphotomedia.aalto.fi

Helsinki Photomedia 2016 offers various platforms where artistic,
philosophical, social, cultural, economical and technological approaches
to photography meet. We welcome submissions from all areas of
photography research. The conference language is English.

Recently, the critical focus in photography studies has increasingly
moved towards the materiality or different materialities of photographic
representation. Semiotic and iconic readings have become challenged by
material and multisensory conceptions. As Elizabeth Edwards puts it:
‘Our understanding of photographic representations is not merely a
question of visual recognition or semiotic but that visual experiences
are mediated through the material nature and material performance in the
formats and presentations of visual images.’ This applies to all fields
of photography, from art to journalism and the amateur image culture.

In contemporary debates, matter is no longer seen as passive material
formed by human actors – matter, materials, and materiality /are/
actors. Inasmuch as the photographic apparatus incorporates technology,
practice, and discourse, material agency should be recognized on all
these levels: technologies, practices, and discourses all have their
particular materialities. Our challenge is to study how they interact.

The emphasis on materiality and agency subscribes to the larger drift in
social sciences and humanities where different forms of ‘new
materialisms’, ‘non-representational’ approaches or ‘thing theories’
encompass descriptions about the materiality of objects and their agency
in social networks. In the context of photography studies, among the
important questions are: What are the materialities of the traditional
photographic image? How have they changed in the course of
digitalization? What is the relation between iconicity and materiality?
How do different agencies and materialities contribute to the formation
of meaning in the photograph? What and how do matters matter, in the
first place?

Multi-disciplinary photography research and photography education are
the fields where  questions of agency and materiality are raised, shaped
and put into practice. Helsinki Photomedia 2016 will take up the
multifaceted issues of photographic agencies and materialities by
focusing on topics including (but not limited to):

- Agency, materiality and historical images

- Questions of materiality in contemporary art photography

- Material conditions of digital photography

- Affordances of photography

- Photography education


For Helsinki Photomedia 2012 conference, see /Photographies/ 1/2013.

For Helsinki Photomedia 2014 conference, see /Photographic Powers/
(published online June 2015)

Merja Salo

Professor

Visual Communication and Photography

Department of Media, Photography

Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

Hameentie 135 C

00560 Helsinki

+358 50 5855238

(merja.salo /at/ aalto.fi) <mailto:(merja.salo /at/ aalto.fi)>


---
Hanna Weselius, Ph. D.
Research Fellow
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture
(hanna.weselius /at/ aalto.fi) <mailto:(hanna.weselius /at/ aalto.fi)>
tel. +358(0)505113243

(hanna /at/ hannaweselius.fi) <mailto:(hanna /at/ hannaweselius.fi)>
www.hannaweselius.fi <http://www.hannaweselius.fi>
http://fi.linkedin.com/pub/hanna-weselius/79/830/544
---


---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------