[Commlist] cfp: Visual Cultures and Communication: Images and Practices on the Move

Call for Papers

ECREA TWG Visual Cultures Conference.

September 4–6, 2019, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Submission deadline, May 15, 2019.

https://events.tuni.fi/visual-cultures-2019/

Title: Visual Cultures and Communication: Images and Practices on the Move

Keynotes: Paul Frosh (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) "Moving Images: On 
the Mobility and Motility of Digital Photography", Jill Walker Rettberg 
(University of Bergen) "Machine Images: from Vertov’s Kino-Eye to Deep 
Fakes and Selfie Lenses".

Visual Cultures and Communication: Images and Practices on the Move

Abstract:

In visual studies, the question of how to apprehend images has been 
contested at least since WJT Mitchell’s call for a pictorial turn, 
defined ‘ex negativo’. While books on visual cultures, visual analysis 
and visual research abound, the kind of consideration that we should 
give single images is discussed from very different kinds of 
perspectives. While some suggest paying careful attention to visual 
detail, form, and motif, others call for a turn away from 
representations, suggesting that main attention should be given to the 
practices within which images become meaningful. While the latter 
approaches may question the usefulness of ‘representation’ per se, the 
former explicitly prioritize that which is made visible.

While the positions of how to approach images diverge, images as 
phenomena to be studied are themselves increasingly ‘on the move’.

Operational images, part of complex logistical chains, are just one 
example of images on the move, that a human being might never get to 
see. But also photos used for phatic communication might be less 
important for what they show, in contrast to the social connections that 
they allow for. On the other hand, public and private environments are 
increasingly filled with screens that display images to be seen. Images 
travel between contexts, in time and space, asking us to constantly 
question who is looking and at what, and in what ways acts of looking 
play a role in this constellation. In short, both our understandings of 
how to approach images, and images themselves, are ‘on the move’.

This conference, organized by the ECREA TWG Visual Cultures, discusses 
the roles of images for visual analysis by focusing on images on the 
move. This entails work on images capturing movement of unfolding 
events, images themselves moving in time, space, and across media, as 
well as the theoretical and analytical approaches that are on the move.

How should we work with images and practices on the move?

We welcome papers on topics including, but not limited to:

- methodological approaches that focus on representational features of 
images and/or the flows, contexts and - practices around images

- researching the visual: new methodological approaches and challenges

- visual ethics / ethics in visual research

- studies or reflections on how to handle image flows and large (moving) 
sets of visual data

- theoretical approaches on representational vs non-representational 
approaches

- entanglements between the material aspect of images and visual practices

- images and infrastructures

- ‘fake news’ and the visual: verification of images

- generic images, stock photos and images banks: modes of production, 
distribution and effects

- digitally mediated visual communication in everyday life

- images and popular culture

- images and developers

- phatic communication and the question of representation

Abstracts of up to 750 words, including a motivation for the study, 
information on theory/concepts used, data/phenomena analyzed and methods 
used, should be sent by 15 May 2019 with an electronic form 
https://www.lyyti.fi/reg/visual-cultures-2019-cfp.

There will be a conference fee of ca. 120-140 Euros, and slightly 
reduced rates to PhD students and ECREA members.

Please find more information on the conference website:

https://events.tuni.fi/visual-cultures-2019/

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