[Commlist] IAVC 2020 conference CFP

*Call for Papers: “Architectures of Vision”*

/International Association for Visual Culture’s 6th biennial conference 
in cooperation with the Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of 
Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka/

University of Rijeka, Croatia

September 10 - 12, 2020

*Submissions due April 1, 2020*

*www.iavc.info* <http://www.iavc.info/>

“[T]he important thing is neither what was said (a content), nor the 
saying itself (an act), but rather the transformation, and the invention 
of still unsuspected mechanisms that will allow us to multiply the 
transformations.” *Michel de Certeau, /The Practice of Everyday Life/*

Architecture etymologically belongs to the order of power. Stemming from 
Greek and Latin, it means “master builder”, derived from /archon/, 
chief. Historically, it is understood as building with the vision of the 
upward, the improved, that is to say an ideal of progress. For its 2020 
conference, the *International Association for Visual Culture *proposes, 
however, a different formulation of architecture–one of layering, of 
consciously building /from something /rather than of scripted building 
that seeks to level or eliminate the past. What can it mean when we 
think of architecture as a horizontal network–even a strategy–of 
different, converging and simultaneous processes?

Our 2020 theme–*The Architecture of Vision*–unites this lateral, at 
times instinctive, at times impromptu idea of architecture with a 
central topic of visual culture–namely vision and visuality. Vision is a 
central topic of visual culture, a discipline that for a couple of 
decades now has been trying to (re)imagine the world around us by taking 
into account the interplay between /logos/ and /imago/, order and 
imagination.

*Key terms for topics:*

·palimpsestic knowledge

·propaganda in visual culture (historical and contemporary)

·origins of change

·monuments and architecture interventions in public space

·revolution and counter-revolution: from local case studies to global 
critical thought

·subject formation (online/virtual and offline/IRL)

·building vision: from the visuality of the “subaltern” to surveillance 
vision

·visuality in cultural studies and ethnography

·visual culture, power and control

·local case studies from Southeast Europe to the Global South: problems 
and opportunities

·the subject of decentralized vision: participatory culture, 
emancipation and the digital

·archivization / archive as architecture

The topic of this year's conference seeks to better understand the 
processes of vision that remake our world as a kind of architectural 
layering. We seek *historical and contemporary topics* that respond to 
these three different strands:

1.First, architecture can be appropriated for the uses of literally 
"building a vision", or creating a vision. Here, we are thinking of both 
the “countervisual” that is imagined and then acted upon–that is to say, 
made material in an architecture that has both an order and flexibility, 
which may be applied, reapplied, and grow. We are also thinking of the 
populist practices of the alt-right and other movements that oppose 
social or climate justice, whose philosophy and action are built on the 
production of a worldview based on “alternative facts” and feeling. In 
other words, how do movements rely on vision as much as infrastructure, 
i.e. “master building”? In what ways does contemporary visual culture 
help enable these counter-revolutionary practices, and in what ways can 
it be used as a weapon of critical thought against them?

1.Therefore, we seek to inspect /vision/ also on a temporal level: as 
clairvoyance, the process of seeing the future. What is the future of 
visual culture? How are we to deal with new concepts in the field of 
cultural studies (from climate crisis to migration or redefinitions of 
gender, citizenship, and subjectivity on a global scale, to local 
important struggles specific to a region)? How do we re-articulate those 
concepts within the frameworks of Visual Culture Studies, including its 
counter-hegemonic and anti-colonial approach?

1.Finally, we wish to inspect /vision/ as one of the central themes of 
visual culture. Vision as a /way of seeing/, placing the one who looks 
in the forefront. How is a subject placed in the position of looking? 
/Who/ is a subject? What is the position of looking today, in a world 
without a stable vantage point? Can we still insist on the notion of a 
subject, if the Renaissance position of the stable agent of the look and 
its object is no longer useful in the digital realm of intersubjective 
exchange, deep fakes, bots, and algorithms? In other words, how can we 
reimagine vision as a process of political and cultural emancipation as 
the world exists today?

We seek proposals for short (20 minute) papers and creative 
presentations. The IAVC’s conferences work to achieve a balance between 
thoughtful and attentive listening and animated discussion. Speakers 
will be prepared for both.

Please submit your *300 to 400 word proposal, a 100 to 200 word 
biography *in a *single running Word document or PDF *to 
*(greetingsIAVC /at/ gmail.com)* <mailto:(greetingsIAVC /at/ gmail.com)> *by April 1, 
2020. Please title your document in the form of “your 
surname_abstract_IAVC2020”.*

We will announce our conference program in late Spring 2020.


Confirmed guests include: *David Ayala-Alfonso *(Independent Curators 
International, USA/Colombia);*Manca Bajec *(Biennial Foundation, 
London/New York); *Brooke Belisle *(Stony Brook University, USA); *Irene 
Chien *(Muhlenberg College, USA);*Jae Emerling *(The University of North 
Carolina at Charlotte, USA);*Joanne Morra *(Central Saint Martins 
College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London, UK);*Rahul 
Mukherjee *(University of Pennsylvania, USA); *Krešimir Purgar *(Academy 
of Arts and Culture, J. J. Strossmayer University, Croatia); *Irit 
Rogoff *(Goldsmiths, University of London, UK); *Marquard Smith* 
(University College London, UK / Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania); 
*Nina Trivedi* (Royal College of Art, UK); and *Øyvind Vågnes* 
(University of Bergen, Norway).

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