Sixth International Conference on the Image
Media Materiality: Towards Critical Economies of “New” Media
Clark Kerr Conference Center
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, California USA
29-30 October 2015
The conference web site is here. The call for papers is here. The submission deadline is November 6, 2014.
How much can you catch in a flash of light?
A lot.
Artificial Light: Flash Photography in the Twentieth Century is an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through August 3. The exhibition web page includes a slide show, along with a video interview with photographer Sara Stolfa, who took the photograph above. You also can see a brief discussion of the show at Time Lightbox. An intriguing review, one that connects flash artistry with the value of compassion, is provided by Ed Voves at Art Eyewitness.
The International Association of Photography and Theory announces the call for papers for its 2014 Conference, which aims to critically investigate the relationship between photography and politics as well as the politics of the medium itself. The Conference will be held in Nicosia, Cyprus from December 5-7 and will feature keynote speakers Walid Raad and John Tagg.
Proposals for 30-minute presentations (20 minutes presentation and 10 minutes for discussion) are invited from various disciplines, including: photography, art history and theory, visual sociology, anthropology, museology, philosophy, ethnography, cultural studies, visual and media studies, communications, and fine and graphic arts. These should present an in-depth investigation of the relationship between photography and politics and the politics of the photographic practice historically, philosophically or through specific case studies.
To propose a paper please send a 400-word (excluding references) abstract no later than June 7, 2014 to icpt@photographyandtheory.com. For the purposes of blind refereeing, full name of each author with current affiliation and full contact details (address, email, phone), title of presentation, and a short biographical note (200 words) should be supplied on a separate document. Both documents (abstract and contact details) should be in English.
Credit: David’s Camera Craft
Visual Dialogues in Postindustrial Societies: Transforming the Gaze
The 2014 Annual Conference of the International Visual Sociology Association
June 26-28, 2014 at Duquesne University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).
Conference Theme: Post-industrial societies require new forms of visual imagination and research. In this context visual researchers create new ways of capturing and interpreting our constantly transforming social life, and construct alternative epistemologies that dialogue with increasingly broader audiences and disciplines.
The preliminary conference program and registration details are here. The IVSA home page is here.
Getting the Picture: The Visual Culture of the News
Visual Studies Research Institute/University of Southern California
May 4-5, 2014
Few would dispute that the news picture, whether static or moving, photographic or autographic, is one of the most ubiquitous, powerful and controversial kinds of images today and that there is a long and complex history of the news picture still to be analyzed and explained. This two-day, interdisciplinary workshop — which includes scholars in fields ranging from art history and history to English, comparative literature, and communications — seeks to classify and comprehend those pictures that are news.
Papers will be pre-circulated for all participants to read. During the workshop, speakers will briefly summarize their papers before the floor opens up for group discussion. To participate and receive access to the papers, please RSVP to vsri@usc.edu.
The conference home page is here. You can see the program here.
Resolutionphoto.org has announced its forthcoming Préservation du patrimoine photographique africain (3PA): West African Image Lab, which will be held in Benin, April 22-25, 2014.
The workshop will provide technical training in preventive conservation as well as open a dialogue on preservation of mid-20th-century photography in collections in Africa. It is part of a larger initiative and series of projects emphasizing creative approaches to preservation, digitization, and digital dissemination, aimed at expanding public access to African photography.
The workshop will bring together museum and archive professionals, researchers, curators, photographers, and arts activists representing photography collections in both Anglophone and Francophone Africa. Instructors and speakers include Fatima Fall, Centre de Recherches et de Documentation du Senegal (CRDS); Debra Hess Norris, University of Delaware Department of Art Conservation; Nora Kennedy, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Bertrand Lavedrine, Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation des Collections, France; Franck Ogou and Fallo Baba Keita, Ecole du Patrimoine Africain, Benin.
Resolution is a non-profit organization dedicated to photography and photography collections in Africa. They work to preserve important photography collections for future generations, and to expand public and community access to the African photographic heritage in the present.
For more information, contact Jennifer Bajorek, Resolution (NY) 917.697.6056, jennifer@resolutionphoto.org; Erin Haney, Resolution (DC), 202.841.3842, erin@resolutionphoto.org.
Photograph from Resolutionphoto.org of curator Franck Ogou and photographer Benoit Adjovi looking at Adjovi’s negative archives in Cotonou.
“Photojournalism and Citizen Journalism: Cooperation, Collaboration, and Connectivity”
Call for Papers: Special Issue of Journalism Practice
Guest editor: Stuart Allan, Cardiff University, UK
If everyone with a smartphone can be a citizen photojournalist, who needs professional photojournalism? This rather flippant question cuts to the heart of a set of pressing issues, where an array of impassioned voices may be heard in vigorous debate. While some voices are confidently predicting photojournalism’s impending demise as the latest casualty of internet-driven convergence, others are heralding its dramatic rebirth, pointing to the democratisation of what was once the exclusive domain of the professional by citizen journalism. Regardless of where one is situated in relation to these stark polarities, however, it is readily apparent that photojournalism is being decisively transformed across shifting, uneven conditions for civic participation in ways that raise important questions for journalism practice.
This special issue of Journalism Practice aims to identify and critique a range of factors currently recasting photojournalism’s professional ethos, devoting particular attention to the challenges posed by the rise of citizen journalism. Possible topics to be examined may include:
• Redefining photojournalism in a digital era
• Evolving forms and practices of citizen photojournalism
• Citizen photo-reportage in war, conflict or crisis events
• Influences of social media on photojournalism
• News organisations’ use of crowdsourced imagery
• Audience perceptions of ‘professional’ versus ‘amateur’ news photography
• Ethical issues engendered by citizen witnessing
• Impact of citizen photo news sites, agencies or networks
• Innovation and experimentation in photo-based visual reportage
Prospective authors should submit an abstract of approximately 250 words by email to Stuart Allan (AllanS@cardiff.ac.uk). Following peer-review, a selection of authors will be invited to submit a full paper in accordance with the journal’s ‘Instructions for authors.’ Please note acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee publication, given that all papers will be put though the journal’s peer review process.
Timeline
Deadline for abstracts: 1 May 2014; deadline for submission of full papers: 1 September 2014. Final revised papers due: 15 January 2015. Publication: Volume 9, Number 4 (August 2015).
Guest Editor
Stuart Allan is Professor of Journalism and Communication, and Deputy Head of School (Academic), in the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, UK. His books include Citizen Witnessing: Revisioning Journalism in Times of Crisis (Polity Press, 2013) and Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives, Volume Two (co-edited with Einar Thorsen; Peter Lang, forthcoming).
Contact
Professor Stuart Allan (AllanS@cardiff.ac.uk)
Deputy Head of School (Academic)
School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies
Bute Building, King Edward VII Avenue
Cardiff University
Cardiff, CF10 3NB
UK
Photograph by Gail Orenstin/The web 3.0 lab/Clima.
That’s quite an acronym, isn’t it? It refers to the International Conference on Film, Visual, Cultural and Media Sciences. The annual meeting his year is in Munich in October, but the paper submission deadline is this Monday, March 31. Basic info and links are below.
The International Conference on Film, Visual, Cultural and Media Sciences is an interdisciplinary forum for the presentation of new advances and research results in the fields of Film, Visual, Cultural, and Media Sciences. The conference will bring together leading academic scientists, researchers, and scholars from around the world. Topics of interest for submission are listed here. Additional conference information is here.
Paper submission March 31, 2014
Notification of acceptance April 30, 2014
Final paper submission and authors’ registration May 31, 2014
Conference Dates October 5 – 6, 2014
Of the many worthy projects that are using online media for support or other forms of development, here are a few that have come to my attention recently:
Dhaka Photo Stories: This Spring teaching artists will partner with Carlotta Center in Dhaka, Bangladesh to conduct a workshop that empowers students to develop their own voice through basic photography and storytelling. The Carlotta Center provides education and resources for children living in slums. The Kickstarter campaign to help these students is here.
Looking at Appalachia: This crowdsourced image archive looks at Appalachia 50 years after the War on Poverty. The Facebook page is here.
Mossless Issue Three: The Kickstarter drive for this volume, which will feature over 100 photographers, met its goal as I was preparing this post, but you can see what it’s about (and still contribute!) here.
Alexia Foundation: This foundation provides grants and scholarships to photojournalists, enabling them to create work that gives voice to those who go unheard, fosters cultural understanding and exposes social injustice. You can donate through the website, and other forms of participation are available at the Facebook page.
Thanks to Jan Berkson and Pete Brook for the suggestions.
“Debating Visual Knowledge” Graduate Symposium at the University of Pittsburgh
October 3 – 5, 2014
Call for Participants
Visual knowledge and visual literacy have become pressing concerns across a variety of academic disciplines and areas of creative production. These concerns are shaped by the fluid definitions of “visual knowledge” and the multiple ways in which it manifests. Many forms of visual knowledge have capabilities that are not shared by language. This knowledge is produced, mediated, and distributed by a number of different objects, tools, media, and technologies. This symposium seeks to broaden understandings of intellectual and creative work by interrogating the theorization, production, use, and historicization of visual knowledge. We envision the event as an exploratory lab, comprising scholarly and creative projects that engage with these questions.
Presentations might relate to (but are not limited to) topics such as:
● Digital humanities
● Cognition, intellectual history, interpretation
● Photography, printmaking, engraving
● “The spatial turn,” GIS, maps, mapping
● The body, performance
● Data visualizations, modeling, categories and groups
● Law and policy
● Media theory, historiography, ecology
● Exhibition design, curating
● Network analysis, grids, graphs, timelines
● Interfaces, constructed/built environments, design
● Astronomy, physics, mathematics, botany, medicine
The symposium will include traditional academic papers, posters, and keynote sessions, as well as presentations of creative works, roundtables, praxis sessions, screenings, and performances. Participants may be invited to take part in curated roundtables, seminars or workshops. We also welcome submissions of projects that could be workshopped or collaborated on in the context of the symposium.
Submission Guidelines:
● For a paper, please submit a 300-word abstract for a 20-minute talk, and a CV.
● For a poster, please submit a 300-word abstract and a CV. A sketch of your poster is optional. If selected, posters must be printed and provided by the participants, and can be up to 30” x 40”.
● For a creative work, please submit up to 10 images and/or a 2-minute video or sound clip, a 300-word project description, and a CV.
● For a pre-constituted panel of up to four papers, please submit a 300-word abstract describing the panel topic, and a 150-word abstract and author’s CV for each proposed paper.
● To propose to lead a roundtable, seminar, or praxis session, please submit a 300-word description of the topic and CVs for all proposed participants. You may also propose a topic without having chosen participants.
If you have any questions about possible submissions or formats for submissions, please contact us at debatingvisualknowledge@gmail.com.
Send submissions to debatingvisualknowledge@gmail.com by April 11, 2014. Selected participants will be notified by mid-May.
Photograph from London’s Fashion Week, 2014 by Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters. The photo was not supplied by the conference organizers, but it does give new meaning to both “debating” and “visual knowledge.”
