Appel à communication : « After Post-Photography » (Saint-Pétersbourg, 14 avril 2016)

After Post-Photography 2. (St. Petersburg, 14 Apr 16) St Petersburg, April 14, 2016

Deadline: Nov 30, 2015

The term ‘post-photography’ seems to imply rejection of what photography is or used to mean. Digital technology, by offering potentially limitless scope for manipulating images, questions the very possibility for the world to be truthfully represented by mechanical means. The post-photographic turn profoundly affected the study of photography, its history and theory. It has proven that the equation between the camera and the eye is mainly a metaphorical one and that the discussion of photography needs not be limited to the image itself, thereby opening the field of research beyond the study of photography as art. Despite this, much of the photographic practice continues to rely upon what post-photographic thinking has discredited, and even post-photographic art remains dependent on those paradigms by negating or reviving them. After Post-Photography 2 conference proposes to consider whether notions such as indexicality and the truth or evidential value of the photographic image can retain their validity and importance even after they were pronounced obsolete. The conference is intended as a platform for multidisciplinary research on photography within the domains of visual and cultural studies. We invite papers dealing with contemporary as well as historical practices, in analogue and digital photography. These papers could address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

reconsidering the history of photography ?

practices employing photographic images as tools of power and means of control ?

personal and collective memory in photography ?

photographs as objects producing knowledge and giving evidence ?

photography as a professional and private practice ?

manipulation of and with photographs ? documentary vs. art photography.

We especially encourage papers dealing with photography’s use on the Internet, to consider the following questions: what new photographic practices have emerged with the rise of the social media; how did the role of the camera change with the introduction of mobile phones; what kind of historical forerunners for online tools such as Instagram, Google Streetview and Snapchat can be found; what effect on the aesthetics of vernacular photography had the arrival of the ‘selfie’.

Please send your proposals to app@mur.at no later than 30 November 2015. The proposal should include your name, institutional affiliation, contact details, title and a short summary of your paper (250-400 words). There is no participation fee. The organizing committee can assist with securing financial support towards participants’ travel expenses and with finding accommodation in St. Petersburg. We will also consider the possibility of video on-line participations. Languages of the conference are Russian and English. It is anticipated that papers presented at the conference will be published. For the program and other informations concerning the first « After Post-Photography » conference (May 15 – 16, 2015), please visit http://conference.fotografika.su/en/