‘The restitution of the tableau form (to which the art of the 1960s and 1970s, it will be recalled, was largely opposed) has the primary aim of restoring the distance to the object-image necessary for the confrontational experience, but implies no nostalgia for painting and no specifically “reactionary” impulse. The frontality of the picture hung on or affixed to the wall and its autonomy as an object are not sufficient as finalities. It is not a matter of elevating the photographic image to the place and rank of painting. It is about using the tableau form to reactivate a thinking based on fragments, openness and contradiction, not the utopia of a comprehensive systematic order’.1

Jean-François Chevrier

In preparation for a 2 day international conference, Tableau/dispositif/apparatus, at Tate Modern in October 2011 a symposium will be held on Saturday November 27 at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in collaboration with the London Consortium to hear papers which address the nature of pictorial forms in contemporary practice; “fragmented, open and contradictory” which Jean-Francois Chevrier opposes to the “utopia of a comprehensive systematic order”. This symposium is in preparation for the second day of the Tate conference which will be dedicated to the presentation of research papers.

500 word abstracts should be submitted by 1 October 2010 to Mick Finch – m.finch@csm.arts.ac.uk

1. The Adventures of the Picture Form in the History of Photography, Jean-François Chevrier in The Last Picture Show – Artists Using Photography 1960-1982, Douglas Fogle, Walker Art Centre, 2003.

space REsolutions: Intervention and Research in Visual Culture

International Conference Hosted by the Visual Culture Programme
Vienna University of Technology
21-23 October 2010



What has emerged over the last decade as one of the most significant aspects of work in Visual Culture is a persistent desire for both a critical sensitivity toward its theoretical underpinnings and an experimental elasticity in its methodological approaches. This drive is giving rise to a plethora of new investigative practices and multi-directional engagements, particularly vis-à-vis matters of geopolitical urgency and their cultural and spatial implications.

Marking ten years of Visual Culture studies at Vienna University of Technology, this conference aims to bring together a diverse group of researchers and practitioners interested in the dynamics between emergent spatial phenomena and new modes of theoretical inquiry. Examining the blurring roles of intervention and research, the conference seeks to debate how critical and creative work in Visual Culture negotiates unexpected transitions and oscillations between individual and collective, real and virtual, center and periphery, and activism and academy.

We invite submission of papers that address the current liminalities of theory and practice in Visual Culture. Participation from graduate students and early career academics is especially welcome. Topics may range from investigating the intimate, indiscreet or collaborative architectures of globalisation to discussing the genealogy of ideas, implemented utopias or unperformed failures.Current shifts in global politics and economy – financial crises, protest movements, natural disasters, worldwide migrations of people and concepts, new shadow economies – contain a myriad of micro and macro processes whose contingent interactions may offer new perspectives for an emerging culture of research as intervention. How can we conceptualise the transformations in the way we share space and the political regimes operative in these spaces? What kinds of strategies does this ambition require? Where will the novel confluences of spatial realities and practice based research lead Visual Culture as a field of critical investigation?

Confirmed keynote speakers include Jorella Andrews (Goldsmiths, University of London), Suzana Milevska (Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje) and Erica Robles (Steinhardt, NYU).

The conference will partly take place within the exhibition setting of 2 or 3 Things we’ve learned – Intersections of art, pedagogy and protest (IG Bildende Kunst, 14th Sep to 29th Oct 2010), which aims to produce a discursive space to address processes, displacements and intervention through art in education. In order to be considered for the conference, please send a paper proposal of 200-300 words (and an optional image) to the conference organisers at
conference@visuelle-kultur.net by 1 August 2010. Please also include a brief biographical sketch of the author(s) of 100-150 words. All abstracts will be reviewed by members of the conference board. Participants will be notified of the acceptance of papers by 1 September 2010.

Conference registration is free of charge. Participants are encouraged to draw on their own resources for travel and accommodation, although there might be some funding available to support paper givers from CEE countries or from outside the EU. Papers from the conference may form the basis for an edited volume. Please address all correspondence (including paper submissions, registration and additional inquiries) to the conference email address: conference [at] visuelle-kultur [dot] net
Updated information will shortly be available on the conference website: http://www.kunst.tuwien.ac.at/conference.htm

Review Board:
Gulsen Bal, Open Space – Zentrum für Kunstprojekte, Vienna
Brigitta Busch, University of Vienna
Eva Egermann, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, IG Bildende Kunst
Susan Kelly, Goldsmiths, University of London
Elke Krasny, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Architekturzentum Wien
Helge Mooshammer, Vienna University of Technology
Peter Mörtenböck, Vienna University of Technology
Irene Nierhaus, University of Bremen
Johanna Schaffer, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

Conference Organising Committee:
Karin Reisinger
Amila Sirbegovic
Stefanie Wuschitz
Nada Zerzer
Institute of Art and Design, Vienna University of Technology
Karlsplatz 13, A-1040 Vienna, Austria

Spanning art, architecture, performance and sustainability, this year’s series of four Salon discussions focus on the matter of ‘matter’ – its nature, substance and the productive forces that govern it. For July Gavin Butt(Goldsmiths College, London), Adrian Heathfield (Roehampton University), and Lois Keidan (Director, Live Art Development Agency) consider Performance Matters.

Co-organised by the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster, London, and the Whitechapel Gallery. Book now to avoid disappointment!

Tickets: £8/£6 (includes free glass of wine)

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org

In 2008, Journal of Visual Culture inaugurated a new Events section, with a multi-authored critical dissection of Documenta 12 (vol.7, no.2). The move is a response to a shift over the past few decades, which has seen the exhibition and/as event encroaching on the territory once steadfastly occupied by the academy and its related publications, as sites for positing theories, exploring histories, and pertinent analyses of visual culture past and present. While the art exhibition, industrial fair, archive, and museum and gallery displays have long played a pivotal role in structuring our public and private experiences of visual culture — temporally, spatially and textually — educational projects, screenings, performances, and festivals have also gained in influence as instances of visual culture in their own right and, simultaneously, as discursive frames for thinking through visual culture. As such, the Events section is envisaged as an experimental forum for analyzing events — very broadly defined as noteworthy occasions or occurrences in visual culture — beyond the limits of their temporal, spatial, and practical boundaries. We appreciate but do not favour actuality: no event is too far in the past, too present, or too far into the future for our consideration. We encourage reflections that diverge from the formats, perspectives and styles readily available in the weekly or monthly press, or in specialist academic journals; we welcome single, multiple, and interdisciplinary points of view, dialogues, polemics and debates, from artists, writers, academics, curators, and critics alike (as well as none of the above).

Submissions: 1,000 to 2,000 words, following the Journal of Visual Culture house-style where appropriate—for further info, click here

Deadlines:  End of January (August issue), end of May (December issue), end of September (April issue)

Contact: s [dot] lok [at] journalofvisualculture [dot] org

It contains interviews with Mieke Bal, Giuliana Bruno, Mark Cheetham, Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey, Susan Buck-Morss, Lisa Cartwright, Lennard J. Davis, Hal Foster, Paul Gilroy, Martin Jay, Nicholas Mirzoeff, W.J.T. Mitchell, Peggy Phelan, and Vivian Sobchack.

Enjoy, and feel free to circulate.

FULL PROGRAMME

Thursday 27th May 2010

12:00 Registration

1:00-2:15 Session 1
W.J.T. Mitchell (English and Art History, University of Chicago)

2:15-4:15 Session 2 Roundtable: Education
Mark Dunhill (School of Art, Central Saint Martins College)
Will Cobbing (Wimbledon College of Art)
Joanne Morra (School of Art, Central Saint Martins College)
Adrian Rifkin (Art Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London)
Joy Sleeman (History and Theory of Art, Slade School of Fine Art)
Victoria Walsh (Education and Interpretation, Tate Britain)

4:45-6:30 Session 3
Gary Hall (Media and Performing Arts, Coventry University)
Joanna Zylinska (Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London)

6:30-8:30: Reception

Friday 28th May 2010

10:00-11:15 Session 4
Keith Moxey (Art History and Archaeology, Columbia)

11:15-1:00 Session 5
Divya P. Tolia-Kelly (Geography, Durham University)
David Cunningham (Cultural & Critical Studies, University of Westminster);

1:00-2:00 Lunch (Not provided)

2:00-4:00 Session 6 Roundtable: Design Studies – Visual Studies – Cultural Studies
Glen Adamson (Design/Craft, RCA/V&A)
Sarah Chaplin (Architectural Humanities, Greenwich University)
Elizabeth Guffey (Design, SUNY, Purchase)
Raiford Guins (Digital Cultural Studies, SUNY, Stony Brook)
Guy Julier (Design, Leeds Metropolitan University)
Penny Sparke (Design History, Kingston University)

4:30-5:45 Session 7
Lisa Cartwright (Communication, UC, San Diego)

Saturday 29th May 2010

10:30-11:45 Session 8
Nicholas Mirzoeff (Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University)

11:45-1:30 Session 9

Esther Leslie (Political Aesthetics, Birkbeck, University of London)
Esther Gabara (Romance Studies, and Art, Art History, & Visual Studies, Duke University)

1:30-2:30 Lunch (Not provided)

2:30-4:30 Session 10 Roundtable: The Future Institution: An International Association for Visual Culture Studies?
Michael Ann Holly (The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown)
Jeremy Gilbert (University of East London)
Stephen Melville (Art/Aesthetics/Philosophy, Ohio State University)
Griselda Pollock (Art Histories/Cultural Studies, University of Leeds)
Marquard Smith (Visual Culture Studies, University of Westminster)

4:30 Conference Ends

Organizers: Nicholas Mirzoeff (New York University), Joanne Morra (University of the Arts London), Marquard Smith (University of Westminster, London)

HOW WE BECAME METADATA

Tuesday 8th June, 6:30-8:30pm

With:

Martin John Callanan  /  Corby & Baily  /  Eunju Han  /  Eduardo Kac

susan pui san lok  /  Ruth Maclennan and Uriel Orlow  /  Thomson & Craighead

Curated by Marquard Smith

University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1 2UW

Contents are:

Matilde Nardelli’s Moving Pictures: Cinema and Its Obsolescence in Contemporary Art
Adrian Rifkin’s Apart from Sex
Nanna Verhoeff’s Theoretical Consoles: Concepts for Gadget Analysis
Joy Sleeman’s Land Art and the Moon Landing
Erkki Huhtamo’s The Sky is (not) the Limit: Envisioning the Ultimate Public Media Display
Julian Stallabrass and Ashley Gilbertson In Conversation
Jeannine Tang’s Events Review

Happy reading!

To access go to:

http://vcu.sagepub.com/current.dtl

Click on link by each article marked ‘PDF’.

Download, read, enjoy, circulate.

The Whitechapel Salon is back! Spanning art, architecture, performance and sustainability, the forthcoming year-long series of four Salon discussions focus on the matter of ‘matter’ – its nature, substance and the productive forces that govern it. Chris Horrocks (Principal Lecturer, Kingston University) and Julian Stallabrass (Reader, Courtauld Institute of Art) consider Popular Matters including mass culture, vernacular photography, Web 2.0 and user-generated content.

Book now to avoid disappointment! Tickets: £8/£6 (includes free glass of wine)

Programmed by Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster, and Journal of Visual Culture