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August 16, 2005

Do we have an Image Problem?

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Performance and Media Art caught between Art History and Visual Culture Studies

The first Media Art Conference in Osnabrück will take place from the 15th to the 17th of May 2006 as a three-day specialist symposium at the University of Osnabrück and is sponsored by Department of Kultur- und Geowissenschaften. It will be held immediately following the 19th European Media Art Festival (EMAF, 10th to 14th May 2006), one of the largest media art events in Europe. This conference in will direct attention to timely questions confronting art history, in particular the multimedia aspects concerning the production, critical appraisal and dissemination of performance and media art. Thus the following aspects will be addressed:

1. art history’s repositioning itself in relation to Visual Culture Studies, Media Studies and Cultural history; 2. the development of a modus operandi which takes into consideration a wide range of methodologies and the interpenetration of different genres; 3. the description and analysis of media art in the face of the instable status of the work concept in Media Art, and art in general.

The key issues to be addressed by the first Media Art Conference in Osnabrück can be summarised by the following question:

Given the increasingly complex demands which the wide range of visual, media, critical, performance, cultural and gender studies exert on the teaching and research environment, how can the history of art maintain its ability to deal aptly with representations, new media and art and simultaneously incorporate interdisciplinary strategies?

By focussing on time- and action-oriented art forms, the traditional discourse will be broadened to include the following questions: Can an (inter)active beholder play an integral role in the making of a work of art without jeopardising its intrinsic artistic value or reducing the “autonomy of the work of art” to a mere attribute? Where exactly do performance and media art fit into the already inflated body of terminology for denoting images?

A glance at the large number of university graduates dealing with art and visual culture (Berlin, Frankfurt, Karlsruhe, Basel) documents the current popularity of the image-discourse. Similarly, the flood of specialist literature in recent years as well as related conferences (e.g. Art Historians Day, Bonn 2005) confirm this trend.

If we take a look at the origins of performance and media art in the 1960s and 1970s and the subsequent development of the iconic/pictorial turns, the suspicion arises that recent efforts to expand the boundaries of art history to absorb current visual culture occurred in part to circumvent the challenges posed by these new art forms.

By investigating art forms which defy traditional definition while exploring the definitions themselves, this conference will attempt to graft these two ambivalent discourses. At the same time it will lay the foundations for a reinterpretation of the relevant academic fields. An impressive series of arguments presented by artists, art historians and experts in media studies address the need to conjoin these conflicting fields of study.

Call for Papers

The conference will focus on the growing affinity between art forms produced, experienced and distributed by the media on the one hand and the highly debated iconic or pictorial turn on the other. One of the central issues will be to question whether the recently developed aesthetic terminology can sufficiently deal with the time- and action-oriented art forms of performance and media art.

In addition to a number of distinguished experts invited to present papers, the speakers will include young scholars as well as contributors selected on the basis of the abstracts they submitted to this call for papers.

Enclosed you will find further information concerning the background and objectives of the conference. Please do not hesitate to ask us questions at any time.

We would be very pleased to include you among the speakers or authors for our planned publication.

Topics for Talks and Articles

1. Performance and media art in the context of the contemporary debate between art history and Visual Culture Studies and where art history is positioning itself in relation to Visual Culture Studies, Media Studies and Cultural History.

2. Media art, art history’s cultural orientation and the scientific modus operandi given the wide range of methodologies and the overlap of genres.

3. Examples of art historical and media studies descriptions and analysis of performance and media art.

In addition to a description of content, the abstracts for papers (c. 400 words) should clearly demonstrate both their relevance to the theme of the conference and their originality.

A publication of the conference findings is planned. All contributions will be considered.

Please submit your abstracts by 30 October 2005 to the EMAC office:
Media Art Conference Osnabrück
http://www.media-art-conference.com
Universität Osnabrück
Fachbereich Kultur- und Geowissenschaften
Kunstgeschichte
Katharinenstraße 5
49069 Osnabrück
Germany

Junior professor Dr. Slavko Kacunko (Organisation)
skacunko@uni-osnabrueck.de
Priv. Doz. Dr. Habil. Dawn Leach (Organisation)
dr.leach@kunstakademie-duesseldorf.de
Björn Brüggemann (Büro)
bjbruegg@uni-osnabrueck.de
Phone: +49 (0)541 969-6041
Fax: +49 (0)541 969-4103

Posted by jo at August 16, 2005 09:47 AM

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