[Commlist] Call for Conference Papers: London Video Arts: ‘An Oppositional Practice’. Perspectives on Video: Art, Activism, Networks, Technology, then and now

*Call for Conference Papers*

**

*/LONDON VIDEO ARTS: ‘An Oppositional Practice.’ /*

*/Perspectives on Video: Art, Activism, Networks, Technology, then and now/*

*//*

*/Conference and Exhibition, February 26 - 28, 2027/*

/Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster and Ambika P3, London/

//

*/Moving Image Review and Art Journal (MIRAJ) in partnership with LUX, 
and the Centre for Research in Education, Art and Media, University of 
Westminster/*

*//*

*//*

*David Hall,/TV Interruptions /(1971): Courtesy of Deborah Hall, estate 
of David Hall & LUX //*

//

*/Deadline for paper proposals: Monday 2^nd November, 17.00 GMT/*

//

Founded in 1976, London Video Arts formed part of the emergence of a 
heterogeneous network of artists and activists keen to explore video for 
its potential as an art form as well as a vehicle for community and 
radical expression.

In the potent space where underground culture intersected with 
technological experimentation, LVA had a distinct agenda. Led by 
artists, most of whom had background in the arts and had attended art 
school,  LVA founding member Stuart Marshall identified the promise of 
an ‘oppositional practice’ and ‘the establishment of a critical relation 
to dominant technology and its representational practices.’ (Marshall: 
Screen: Winter 1984). The video art practice at LVA was thus engaged 
with a critique of television as broadcast, while simultaneously 
committed to finding new radical spaces and contexts to exhibit the 
medium: from TV monitors in galleries, public spaces, TV rental shop 
windows in the high street to cinemas and alternative screening spaces.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary year of LVA's formation, a 
reconsideration of video as an oppositional practice seems timely. How 
might current artists, curators and scholars learn from the strategies 
and collective practices developed at LVA and the wider culture of video 
collectives and exchange that burgeoned internationally from the 1970s? 
LVA's own history was never confined to London: its members carried the 
work into Glasgow, Newcastle, Cardiff and Dundee, and into dialogue with 
video communities in New York, Toronto, Paris and Amsterdam. What can 
tracing these regional and international networks tell us about how 
oppositional media cultures take root and travel? Where do we see 
comparable collective, activist or community-based video practices at 
work today, in the UK and beyond? And what might contemporary artists 
and activists working with moving image, many operating in a landscape 
of platforms, algorithms and networked distribution rather than 
broadcast, recognise of their own concerns in LVA's early experiments 
with autonomy, access and collective authorship?

MIRAJ, in partnership with LUX, invites abstracts to debate these 
questions and reflect on the legacy of LVA at a two-day conference at 
the University of Westminster and associated exhibition at gallery 
Ambika P3 on 26-27 February 2027.

*We invite 20 minute papers and pre-constituted panels with a maximum of 
4 speakers that:***

  * consider the definition of video art since its inception and the
    major transformations the concept has gone through;
  * review and reframe existing video histories;
  * examine the organisational model of the video collective, and its
    modes of circulation and distribution;
  * explore the international and regional video networks of which LVA
    was part,
  * share new research into underacknowledged video histories and figures;
  * address the heterogeneous and intersecting ecologies of video
    practice: whether conceptual documentation and modernist experiment,
    radical campaigning and community engagement, and the later return
    to representational form;
  * address how technological changes have determined video practices,
    cultures and ecologies;
  * examine how London Video Arts addressed the hegemony of broadcast TV;
  * explore the determining role of televisual culture and production in
    the development of video practice: it’s forms and address.
  * consider what contemporary collective, activist or community-based
    video practices, in the UK and internationally, share with or depart
    from LVA's model of artist-led organising
  * consider how video art explored the limits of its material,
    processes and forms;
  * discuss the role of video to address political and social urgencies
    and injustices;
  * question the legacy of analogue video technology in the digital age;
  * address the challenges of how to archive, conserve and exhibit
    fragile historic video technologies;
  * explore how museums and galleries understand video art today.

*Please submit your abstract (max 250 words), with contact details, 
affiliation and short bio (max 100 words) to /(miraj /at/ westminster.ac.uk)/*

**

*CFP submission deadline: 17.00 (GMT), November 2^nd 2026 *

**

/LONDON VIDEO ARTS: 'An Oppositional Practice.' Perspectives on Video: 
Art, Activism, Networks, Technology, then and now /is part of /LVA50/ - 
a year-long programme marking the 50th anniversary of the formation of 
London Video Arts (LVA) - including exhibitions, touring screenings, 
events, a symposium and a publication, delivered with partners across 
the UK.

This year long programme is developed by LUX in partnership with Moving 
Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ), the University of Westminster's 
Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) and a 
network of UK venues including Spike Island (Bristol), Ambika P3 
(London), BALTIC (Gateshead), g39 (Cardiff), LUX Scotland (Glasgow) and 
Vivid Projects (Birmingham).

LVA50 engages audiences, connects generations of artists, giving formal 
critical recognition to LVA's lasting influence on contemporary moving 
image practice. LVA50 is supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, 
awarding National Lottery Good Cause funding.

The /Moving Image Review & Art Journal/ (MIRAJ) is the first 
peer-reviewed publication devoted to artists’ film and video, and its 
contexts. MIRAJ offers a widely distributed international forum for 
debates surrounding all forms of artists’ moving image and media 
artworks. It is published twice a year in print by Intellect Books, and 
has its editorial base at the Centre for Research in Education, Art and 
Media (CREAM) at the University of Westminster.

Editors: Michael Mazière, Independent Scholar; Lucy Reynolds, University 
of Westminster

Scholarly Editor: Rachel Garfield, Royal College of Art

Reviews Editor: Clare Carolin, Kings College, Mercedes Vicente, Central 
Saint Martins, University of the Arts London

Conference co-ordinator: Lauren Houlton, University of Westminster

Assistant Editor: Sohaila Baluch, Royal College of Art

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