The past two decades have witnessed a large increase in academic interest in all visual phenomena, including those strictly visual – from painting and film to experimental video and multimedia installations – as well as all the forms of applied arts: graphic and industrial design, fashion and advertising. In many countries, this interest in visual practice is accompanied by the interest in visual theories, primarily in the new discipline of visual studies that keep acquiring academic legitimacy at universities worldwide.

Visual studies have emerged as a result of parallel expansion that occurred respectively in the fields of art history and film studies, whose radical members have converged particular theories of still and moving images, towards an integral science of images. After W.J.T. Mitchell and Gottfried Boehm have sanctioned the pictorial turn as the basic interest of hyper-mediatized society, it became clear that various visual phenomena demand a much wider theoretical platform, one which would take into consideration the definitive erasure of borders between high and low art, between elite and popular culture, as well as between creators and consumers of visual messages.

For the first time in history, the users of images became the producers of images, within an unrestrained circular process, wherein images yield new insights, while insights demand their instantaneous pictorial foundation. The development and expansion of telecommunication technologies have transformed the traditionally understood technical images into a new communication code that is accessible to everyone. However, does this accessibility simultaneously presume that the new communication code is intelligible to everyone using it? Do we really know what are the images telling us, what do they want from us or what is it that we want from them? Do we know in which manner the most recent researches in technosciences prove, by the way of visualization, their radical tenets on biocybernetic complex systems, and how is the notion of image inscribed into the performative bodies of art and fashion today?

The International Scientific Conference Visual Studies as Academic Discipline aims to gather a wide circle of university oriented theorists, so that they can jointly consider the ways in which they deliberate and teach about images, primarily about their overlapping meanings, that arise through the intermedia networking of various visual practices, as well as through the transdisciplinary analyses of contemporary theories. This symposium wishes to examine the theoretical legitimacy of a wide field of visual representations: art, film, photography, design, fashion and performance. It also wishes to consider the disciplinary status of actual visual studies as an (established) scientific paradigm.

We invite all the concerned colleagues to submit their presentations on one of the proposed subjects:

1. The theoretical and disciplinary status of visual studies – two decades after the pictorial turn
2. Visual studies as a “radical” version of art history or a critical detour?
3. The epistemological aspects of visual studies in university curricula
4. The potentials of the applied science of images: interactions between art, film, design, fashion and performance
5. “Non-disciplinarity” as an approach to the multimedia image of the world
6. Fashion studies today: from the theory of fashion to the design of body

Presentations are limited to 20 minutes. In order to participate at the Conference, please send abstract of your paper (150 words) together with short CV to email: purgar@vizualni-studiji.com and zarko.paic@zg.t-com.hr until 21st of July 2013. The scientific board will notify you of the status of your proposal until 25th of July 2013.

Keynote speaker:

W.J.T. Mitchell, University of Chicago, USA

Plenary speakers:

Michele Cometa, University of Palermo, Italy
Marquard Smith, University of Westminster, London, GB

Members of the workgroup Visual Culture in Europe:

Nina Lager Vestberg, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Øyvind Vågnes, The Bergen Center for Visual Culture, Norway
Joaquín Barriendos, Columbia University, New York, USA
Ana Maria Guasch, University of Barcelona, Spain
Safet Ahmeti, Center for Visual Studies, Skopje, Macedonia
Max Liljefors, Lund University, Sweden
Almira Ousmanova, European Humanities University, Vilnius, Lithuania

Scientific and organisational board:

Žarko Paić, PhD, Associate Professor, Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb
Krešimir Purgar, PhD, Center for Visual Studies, Zagreb
Sandra Bischof, PhD, Dean of Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb
Katarina Nina Simončič, PhD, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb
Nikola Petković, PhD, Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka
Leonida Kovač, PhD, Assistant Professor, Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb
Suzana Marjanić, PhD, Senior Research Associate, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore, Zagreb
Goran Sergej Pristaš, Associate Professor, Academy of Dramatic Art, University of Zagreb
Silva Kalčić, Lecturer, Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb
Petra Krpan, MSc, Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb
Laura Potrović, MSc, Academy of Dramatic Art, University of Zagreb
Nikola Devčić, Director of the Association “White Wave”, Zagreb

Organizers:

Center for Visual Studies, Zagreb; Tvrđa – Magazine for theory, culture and visual arts; Croatian Writers’ Society; Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb; Association “White Wave”, Zagreb

The Conference will take place at the Faculty of Textile Technology in Zagreb, from 7th to 9th November 2013. Details will be regularly updated on the web site www.visual-studies.com.

The Conference is organized within the activities of the workgroup Visual Culture in Europe, and is the fourth such event, following previous ones held in London (2010), Barcelona (2011) and Trondheim (2012).

The Conference Visual Studies as Academic Discipline is endorsed by The International Association for Visual Culture.

ARCHIVING CHINA IN BRITAIN: MYTHS AND REALITIES #6
DIASPORIC TRANSLATIONS

Department of English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies, University of Westminster
Co-hosted with the Contemporary China Centre

Friday 24 May 9.30am–5.30pm, The Cayley Room, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Entrance is free but strictly limited so it is essential to book your place by emailing Anne Witchard: anne@translatingchina.info

9.30AM – Coffee served in Room UG05

10.00AM – ‘The work of Ming-Ai (London) Institute 院 徽 涵 意 and their historical project on British Chinese history’

Chungwen Li and Aubrey Ko will be talking about Ming-Ai, set up in 1993 to promote social, cultural, educational and economic exchanges among the peoples of Hong Kong, China and Britain, http://www.ming-ai.org.uk

10.30AM – ‘On Not Speaking Chinese – The Hidden Lives of the Chinese in the Caribbean’

Chrys Chijiutomi, Associate Research Assistant for ‘China in Britain: Myths and Realities’ # 6, currently taking the MA, Culture Diaspora Ethnicity at Birkbeck College, University of London.

This paper will examine the historical and contemporary presence of Chinese communities in the Caribbean and consider what ‘Chineseness’ means in an age of globalisation and diaspora, looking at the socio-cultural impact and influences of Chinese Caribbean communities on artforms such as music (e.g. reggae), literature, theatre, dance, food cultures and visual art.

11.00AM – Morning Coffee served in Room UG05

11.15AM – ‘China in Britain: China in the Caribbean’

Dr. Judith Misrahi-Barak (Paul-Valéry University Montpellier III, France).

11.45AM – Diasporic Migrations panel chaired by Dr. Diana Yeh

12.00PM – ‘How Jim was Shanghaied: 1930s Shanghai and its lasting influence on the writing of JG Ballard’

Duncan Hewitt (New York University in Shanghai)

The unique environment of the Shanghai of the 1930s and ‘40s has exerted a lasting influence on the world of English literature through its impact on the distinctive vision of the writer JG Ballard. This paper looks at how Shanghai’s rampant consumerism, highly developed media culture and constant threat of violence influenced not only those of Ballard’s works which deal explicitly with his Shanghai childhood, but also the author’s writing and worldview throughout his career. It’s something Ballard initially denied, but came to acknowledge in his later years – though it’s a connection which has yet to be embraced by the Shanghai authorities.

12:45PM – ‘East West Connectivities in Two Dances: Red Detachment of Women (1964) and The Nightingale (1981)’

Dr. Geraldine Morris (Roehampton University)

The paper examines the notion of identity by reference to two dance works created in contrasting nations, the Peoples Republic of China and the United Kingdom, and considers the extent to which an aesthetic object can be a representation of a country’s culture. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Morris will examine the ways in which opposing ideologies merge in these works producing an East/West fusion. Red Detachment of Women (1964), created by a collaborative team of three, Li Chengxiang, Jiang Zuhui and Wang Xixian, was made in the years leading up to the Cultural Revolution. It was conceived as a patriotic, anti-bourgeois work, derived entirely from Chinese values, and yet is suffused with Western ideals and imagery. The Nightingale (1981) choreographed by Frederick Ashton, the founder choreographer of the Royal Ballet, is a hybrid work, comprising dance and song mixing East and West but perceived as Western. Dances are identified mainly through their choreography, so a dance that embodies a Western style of movement can only ever be partially Eastern, whatever the narrative content. In Red Detachment of Women, while the story, sets and costume are evidently Chinese, the movement and form is balletic and embraces a Western aesthetic. In contrast, The Nightingale borrows from Chinese regional dance but is framed by British balletic culture. The paper demonstrates that by teasing out the complexities of a dance work, the perception of its cultural identity can be both disturbed and challenged.

1.15PM – Buffet Lunch in Room UG05

2:15PM – ‘Only Connect: New Media and Chinese Overseas from the Age of the Telegraph to that of the Internet’

Jeffrey Wasserstrom (Chancellor’s Professor of History at University of California, Irvine)

This presentation will look at comparisons and contrasts between the ways that different technologies of communication have fascinated and been used by Chinese to keep in touch with one another and learn about the world from the 1870s through the present. Points of departure will include globetrotter Li Gui’s accounts of telegraphy in his book about his 1876 trips around the world; the role that circular telegraphs played in political struggles of the late 1800s and early 1900s; the significance of the then-very-new form of email in spreading word of the Tian’anmen rising among Chinese studying in the West; and the growing importance of blogs, microblogs, online only journals, and other digital forms in connecting people within and beyond China.  

3:00PM – ‘Cosmopolitans Four Ways: Artists of Hong Kong’s Visual Diaspora’.

Pamela Kember is an Independent Art Historian, Curator, and a Director on the Board of the Asia Art Archive Hong Kong.

The ‘cosmopolitan nomad’ articulates the state of existence of a number of migrant Chinese artists originally from Hong Kong who seem to inhabit a transnational existence, in the sense of constantly crossing borders, cultures and communities, internationally. This paper will examine the creativity of four such émigré Hong Kong artists, John Young (AUS) Paul Chan (USA) Suki Chan, (UK) and Simon Leung (USA) and focuses on specific diasporic subjectivites that inform their respective practices to date. The paper will examine the relationship between the diversity of their practices whilst dealing with specific frames of reference: concepts of memory, belonging and displacement.

3:30PM - ‘Transcultural Curating – Global perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Art’

Rachel Marsden is Research Curator (part-time) for Chinese Arts Centre (Manchester, UK) and Coordinator (part-time) for the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) (Birmingham, UK and China).

4:00PM – Afternoon Tea in Room UG05

4.15PM – ‘The Fu Manchu Complex’

Daniel York will discuss his work as a founding member of the British East Asian Artists’ group who have pressured the UK theatre industry to offer more opportunities to East Asian theatre artists. As a result of this, the Arts Council, Equity & SOLT/TMA recently sponsored an event at the Young Vic Theatre attended by 200 people to raise awareness of East Asian theatre practitioners, which Daniel helped organise as a member of the event steering committee.

The Museum of Contemporary Cuts (MoCC) is developing a research project, under the directorship of Lanfranco Aceti, to assess and map the impact of the arts funding reductions in several European Countries and North America, and would like to invite individuals and funded organizations to contribute their data.

This is a form that will provide us with the data regarding art organizations that have closed as a consequence of the current economic crisis or that have had their funding cut.

The research project will analyze the impact of the current economic crisis on the arts throughout the following countries (Austria, Canada, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States) comparing official data with data provided on each specific territory.
The project aims to create a repository of data that can be accessed and poured through to gain a clear impression of the affected organizations and the current state of the arts from 2007 to present.

MoCC will create, using the information gathered, a series of data visualizations, as well as art commissions, curatorial projects, exhibitions, research analyses and publications. It will promote initiatives that will be showcased and presented at international events and biennials.

At the end of 2012, one such organization effected, was the NIMk. The activities of the Netherlands Media Art Institute ceased as of 31 December, 2012.

To assist us with this task, we are asking individuals and arts organizations to send us the following information on the art organizations that have closed or have received funding cuts in the period 2007 – present.

You can provide this information by using our online web form available at this link: http://museumofcontemporarycuts.org/deadly-cuts-form/

Also, we would like to display, online, the Letter of Funding Cuts that art institutions received during the period 2007 – present.

These Letter of Funding Cuts can be scanned at 300dpi resolution and emailed to: museumofcontemporarycuts@gmail.com or posted, as a physical copy to be archived by MoCC.

Postal address: Ref. Letter of Funding Cuts To: Lanfranco Aceti, MoCC Director, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University, Orhanli/Tuzla, 34956 Istanbul, Turkey

Letters should be sent ideally by December 31, 2013 – but we will continue to accept them throughout the life of the Museum of Contemporary Cuts.

Enquires about this particular project, collaborations for exhibitions and research with MoCC should be sent to: info@museumofcontemporarycuts.org

To stay informed please subscribe to our newsletters: http://www.lanfrancoaceti.com/newsletters

Follow MoCC on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MuseumOfContemporaryCuts

Follow MoCC on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MoCC_2012

We acknowledge the support of Operational and Curatorial Research (OCR), International Association for Visual Culture, Kasa Gallery, Sabanci University, Chelsea College, Westminster University and Goldsmiths College.

Image credit: Jonathan Munro, Vacant, 2013. Digital image.

We Have Come to Shack Up with You is a new art project by Lanfranco Aceti.

Lanfranco Aceti Inc. sponsors 10 return train trips from London to Wendover, to the country home of the current Prime Minister. In the spirit of sacrifice and in order to share the costs of the current debt, perhaps the Prime Minister may consider providing accommodation in the extra number of rooms of his country home.

This rambling performance that sees an idyllic journey in the English countryside as well as a walk up to the country house of the PM will provide an artistic and aesthetic moment to reflect on the philosophical implications of a growing divide between the haves and have nots, between petty crimes by the lower classes heavily punished and global criminal activities by the higher classes that go unpunished.

On the 1st April, 2013 (as a bad April Fools’ joke) a set of new stringent changes have been made to the United Kingdom’s welfare system. One of the most controversial changes by the current government is to penalize those living in social housing; the disadvantaged and out of work. Find out more about the bedroom tax.

When: 13th April 2013
Time: 10am – 5pm
Where: Leaving from London Marylebone to Wendover

To apply for this trip and be one of the lucky 10 to participate in the artwork please get in touch with the Museum of Contemporary Cuts by accessing the link to the form and provide your name, email, telephone number and a short text explaining the reason why you should join the trip.

Additional to the cost of train travel the 10 attendees will receive lunch and a pint in one of the local pubs.
If you have any queries about this event, please contact Jonathan Munro and Ozden Sahin:
info@museumofcontemporarycuts.org

About Chequers the residency of the current Prime Minister

Chequers is the official country home of the Prime Minister of the UK. It is an Elizabethan mansion in the Chiltern hills near Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, and was given to the nation by Lord Lee of Fareham under the Chequers Estate Act 1917, which came into effect in 1921. Its estate contains about 500 ha/1235 acres of farmlands and woods.

We Have Come to Shack Up with You is realized by Lanfranco Aceti Inc. with the collaboration of MoCC (Museum of Contemporary Cuts).

Artworks by Lanfranco Aceti.
Senior Curators: Joasia Krysa and Marquard Smith.
Curators: Jonathan Munro and Ozden Sahin

The International Association for Visual Culture is thrilled to be collaborating with the Museum of Contemporary Cuts (http://museumofcontemporarycuts.org/) and Lanfranco Aceti (http://www.lanfrancoaceti.com/) on ‘The Cost of Living’. The event will be taking place at the Royal College of Art, London, on 11th April at 6, and contributors include Lanfranco Aceti, Johnny Golding, Marquard Smith, Julian Stallabrass, and Tom Corby (in absentia).

Educating Mind, Body & Spirit: Adult Education since 1838
24 and 25 April 2013

Staff and graduate students from the Institute will be contributing to the two-day conference ‘Educating Mind, Body & Spirit: Adult Education since 1838.’ Fees for the two days, including refreshments, are £60 or £30 for students/unwaged. To book, please email archive@westminster.ac.uk Other enquiries may be directed to Dr Helen Glew via h.glew@westminster.ac.uk

Day 1

10.30 Welcome/Opening Remarks

10.40 Keynote: Mark Freeman, University of Glasgow, ‘Writing the History of Adult Education: Where Next?’

11.40 Coffee

11.55 John K Walton, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria, ‘Adult Education in the Humanities: What Sort of Future?’

12.30 Lunch

13.20 Panel: Adult Education and Institutions
Contributions from Elaine Penn, Darlene Clover, Kathy Sandford, Maureen Park, Kate James, Edward Bottoms, and Jim Rahahan

15.00 Coffee

15.20 Panel: Educating Through Culture
Contributions from Alex Warwick, Neil Mattews, Sara Dominici, Tom Woodin

18.30 Reception

Day 2

9.45 Panel: Gender and Adult Education
Contributions from Helen Glew, Fay Lundh Nilsson, Mervi Kaaminen, and Lajos Olasz

11 Coffee

11.20 Panel: Adult Education Initiatives and Personalities
Contributions from: Peter Catherall, Bill Bailey and Lorna Unwin, Lawrence Goldman, and Kate Bradley

12.50 Lunch

13.50 Keynote: William Whyte, University of Oxford, ‘Still Travelling in a Strange Country? Writing Adult Education back into the History of Universities’

14.50 Coffee

15.00 Panel: Adult Education: Comparative Perspectives
Contributions from Mark Freeman, Jana Sims, Kirsi Ahonen, Darly Leeworthy, and Anders Nilsson

16.50 Closing Remarks

Body of Evidence by Tom Corby and Gavin Baily
Kasa Gallery, Istanbul, March 21 to April 20, 2013.
Visiting hours: 10:00 – 17:00 every day except Sunday

The Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture’s Governing Board member Dr Tom Corby has a fascinating and challenging exhibition entitled ‘Body of Evidence’ opening next week at Kaza Gallery in Istanbul. If you’re in the neighbourhood, check it out. You can find further information below or by following this link: http://www.lanfrancoaceti.com/2013/03/body-of-evidence/

Produced in collaboration with MoCC (Museum of Contemporary Cuts), Goldsmiths College, Sabanci University and the University of Westminster. Curatorial team: Lanfranco Aceti (Kasa Gallery Director and Senior Curator), Vince Dziekan (Associate Curator), Ozden Sahin (Curator) and Jonathan Munro (Curatorial Assistant)

The exhibition initiates a series of new artworks and installations designed to blur the boundaries between medicine, data, documentation, economics and art. Conceived as a complex autoportrait of the body undergoing advanced treatment for cancer, the exhibition serves as the primary site where the possibilities, visibilities and public manifestations of the body at its most vulnerable are tested to their limits. Body of Evidence forms part of a larger, multi-faceted project (Blood and Bones) in which the artist faces a complex set of questions about the meaning of life and death. These are fundamental questions that art has wrestled with for centuries. The challenge presented in the case of Tom Corby’s exhibition is how to make sense of the relationship between physicality and data; materiality and immateriality; medical intervention and metastasis (where, in the broadest material and clinical sense of the word, the death spiral of the afflicted body is mirrored by the wider economic and environmental ecologies within which it is situated).

Employing an idiosyncratic set of approaches to the process of data visualization, the installation is composed of a series of objects related to the artist’s treatment that together act as a physical visualization of the data his illness is producing during his treatment. These data touch upon and use personal objects such as the hats he wears on a daily basis and which he documents via his blog. Together, these elements reveal a meticulous and methodically structured approach that challenges viewers to detach themselves from all emotional aspects. As the body becomes subjected to the procedures and processes of ordering, selecting, sectioning and framing, it transforms into a grand taxonomic work. In this sense, the exhibition exhibits a certain character typical of the British mindset; particularly, calling upon the indexing fetish attributable to the great scientific explorers of the Victorian era.

In this case, however, the exploration that Tom Corby is embarking upon is not across an uncharted ocean, unexplored land mass or previously unseen/inaccessible dimension of physical reality. The exhibition Body in Evidence charts the artist’s expedition inside his own body and across his own soul, exploring the existential data of a body/object subjected to medical intervention; the body as a system that while in the process of shutting down, continues to produce data. In equal parts heroic and obsessive, this project touches on attitudes to death and disease in a wider sense, namely a desire to find ways, processes and forms to transcend the act of termination and come to an accord with our feelings about it.

Tom Corby is the Director of CREAM’s Doctoral Programme, deputy Director of CREAM and coordinates the experimental media cluster research at Westminster. His interdisciplinary artworks (in collaboration with Gavin Baily and Jonathan Mackenzie) have been internationally exhibited and have won numerous awards including: nomination for the FILE Festival Digital Language award 2010; the jury nominated award at the 10th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2007; honorary mentions at the Prix Ars Electronica 2006 and 2000; honorary mention: “The Post-Cagian Interactive”, “Art on the Net” The Machida City Museum of Arts, Tokyo and the main festival prize Cynet Art 1999. In 2000 he was nominated for the “International Media Art Award 2000″, at Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany and was the artist in residence at the ICA London 1998.

ARCHIVING CHINA IN BRITAIN

Saturday 27 April, 9.30am–6pm
The Boardroom, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

This one-day conference is co-hosted by the Department of English, Lingusitics and Cultural Studies with the University of Westminster Contemporary China Centre, keeper of the Chinese Poster Collection, an archival holding of more than 800 posters from the Mao era.

RSVP anne@translatingchina.info

For further details please visit translatingchina.info

This is Project 5 of the International Association for Visual Culture (IAVC). This project is constituted as a collaborative and Open Access forum on the possible futures of publishing. The project is published on-line and simultaneously across a number of distinct scholarly, creative, and critical research platforms: the College Art Association’s Art Journal website, the open-access journal Culture Machine, The Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture (IMCC, University of Westminster), the IAVC, the journal of visual culture’s satellite website, Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular, and the Modern Language Association Commons.
Project 5’s origins are in a panel we organised in New York City in June 2012 for Nicholas Mirzoeff’s ‘Now! Visual Culture’ event, the Association’s second biennial conference. In this event’s network of relations and expectations – in the places between NYC, this non-conference, and Occupy – we watched the fermentation of something that felt new and offered new ways forward in our understanding of visual culture, and also in the ways in which it is distributed, accessed, engaged with and acted upon.
The ‘future publishing’ that we discussed coalesces around the emerging moment in the history of technologies and the adaptive strategies deployed by the disseminators of information to accommodate them. The opportunities and challenges that they seed have extraordinary implications for the distribution and consumption of information; perhaps the most radical since the development of moveable type and its consequent market in reading.
The release of easy to utilise, freely available publishing software presents both challenges and possibilities for publishing as a practice and an industry. The ability to develop and distribute multi-touch interactive ‘text books’ at no cost through iTunes, for example, at once supports and restricts ‘open source’ publishing projects and is symptomatic of developments across the sector. The development of new technologies and new platforms for dissemination like the Kindle/tablets means that both traditional formats and networks require rethinking.
Some of the questions we consider include:
• How will changes in format impact on content – the medium is the message?
• What are the challenges for the publishing industry in generating sustainable business models that support author activity?
• How will these new market conditions impact and inflect ‘open source’ publishing models?
• What are the consequences for the distribution of research and how will it maintain or re-imagine its integrity across and through less formalised, deregulated networks?
• How will authors generate income?
The panellist’s engagement with these and other questions are appended here, and we extend a huge debt of gratitude to Katherine Behar, Gary Hall, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, and Tara McPherson for their insights, as well as their willingness to formulate and realise Project 5 as a model of a paradigm for future publishing.
*
On 11th January 2013, Aaron Swartz was found dead in his New York apartment, having apparently taken his own life. He was 26. A web programmer, co-founder of Reddit, and advocate of free-data, Swartz had been arrested in July 2011, and was being sued for downloading and attempting to release 4.8 million academic articles from the digital library JSTOR. He was arrested in July 2011, charged with data theft-related crimes, and was due to stand trail in April 2013. If convicted he faced over 30 years in prison. On January 9th 2013, JSTOR announced that the archives of more than 1,200 journals were now available for, as Library Journal puts it, ‘limited free reading by the public’. Such free reading amounts to three articles every two weeks. We have a long way to go.

Mark Little and Marquard Smith

Future Publishing

Exhibiting Performance Conference

Date: 1-3 March 2013
University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

The Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) of the University of Westminster is pleased to announce Exhibiting Performance, a three-day event considering contemporary issues central to the display of performance art. Following on from the Exhibiting Photography (2011) and Exhibiting Video (2012) International Conferences, this event will bring together notable artists, curators and writers, and provide a forum for a number of inter-related questions:

• On what terms has the rise of Performance in contemporary arts taken place?
• How do our museums and galleries disseminate and exhibit Performance?
• How does the live act of Performance inform questions around the body and the audience?
• How is Performance documented, archived and transacted?
• How does technology contribute to the development of Performance?

The conference will be framed by Indeterminacy, a John Cage performance by Stewart Lee, Tania Chen and Steve Beresford in the Old Lumiere Cinema, Regent Street and the exhibition of work by artists and writers responding to a live performance by Philip Lee and Cally Trench Do you remember it – or weren’t you there? at London Gallery West.

There will be four half-day themes:

Curating:
With Tate Modern opening the Tanks for performance events and Marina Abramovic’s major exhibition at New York’s MoMA in 2010, is performance art now mainstream, and on what terms? How do museums and galleries understand performance art?

Dissemination and Documentation:
How is performance documented ? If you missed the performance is that it? What value does an art work in a different medium which gives a memory of a performance have?

The Body and Audiences:
What is the role of the body in performance today ? Why do so many performance artists perform naked ? Is the naked body a sign of authenticity or does the taboo distract from meaning ? How is the relationship between artist and audience different from or similar to other areas of art?

Performance and Media:
How does technology mediate performance ? What are the ontologies of networked, mediated and recorded performance practices ? How is videoperformance ‘live’? How do different technologies of camera (webcam, surveillance, etc) and screens (CRT, flat, projection, mobile phone, computer, etc) change our concept of performance?

Confirmed Participants:
Franko B, artist; Steve Beresford, Performer and Musician, University of Westminster; Rocio Boliver, artist, Mel Brimfield, artist; Dr Gavin Butt, Goldsmith College; Jon Cairns, Central St Martins; Dr Maria Chatzichristodoulou, curator and performer, University of Hull; Tania Chen, Musician; Dr Rob la Frenais, Curator The Arts Catalyst; Professor Joram ten Brink, University of Westminster, Lois Keidan, founder, director Live Art Development Agency; Richard Layzell, artist, Middlesex University; Stewart Lee, writer and performer; Kira O’Reilly, artist University of Hull; Dr Lucy Reynolds, University of the Arts; Dr Marquard Smith, University of Westminster; Dr Margherita Sprio, University of Westminster; Gary Stevens, artist; Dr Tracey Warr, writer and curator, Oxford Brookes University; Catherine Wood, Curator, Contemporary Art & Performance at Tate; Silvia Ziranek, artist.

PROGRAMME AND REGISTRATION

http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/cream/events/exhibiting-performance-conference

This conference will take place from 4.00pm on Friday 1 March to Sunday 3 March 2013. The fee for registration will be:
Full conference: Standard rate £85. One day rate £50
Full conference: Student rate £40. One day rate £30.
Performance only: £10 – Student Rate £5

PERFORMANCE
Indeterminacy, a John Cage performance
Sunday 3 March 2013, 6.30pm
Stewart Lee, Tania Chen and Steve Beresford
Regent Street Cinema
University of Westminster
309 Regent Street
London W1R 8AL

EXHIBITION:
Do you remember it – or weren’t you there?
Philip Lee and Cally Trench
31 January 2013 – 3 March 2013
London Gallery West, School of Media, Art and Design
University of Westminster, Watford Road, Harrow
Middlesex HA1 3TP

1. 6th February 2013, 4pm – 5.15pm, Room 106, 32-38 Wells Street, W1T 3UW.

Professor Danny Nicol, School of Law, University of Westminster
‘Legitimacy and Globalised Law in Dr Who’ (Joint seminar, with English Literature and Culture)

All Welcome. RSVP Chris Daley.

2. 12th February, 2013, 4pm – 5.30pm, Room 2.05a, 4 Little Titchfield Street

Dave Griffiths, C.E.O King CNUT Clothing
‘I fought the (fashion) law: F.C.U.K vs C.N.U.T’

3. 26th February 2013, 10am-12.00pm, Room 2.04 Riding House Street. NB Enter through 4 Little Titchfield Street W1W 7UW.

Professor Christian Armbruester, Freie Universität Berlin
‘Celebrity Rights to their Own Image – a Civil Law Perspective’

All Welcome: RSVP Chris Ellins (C.J.Ellins@westminster.ac.uk)

4. 5th March 2013, 5pm – 6.30pm, Room 2.05a, 4 Little Titchfield Street, W1W 7UW

Daniel Geey, Solicitor Field Fisher Waterhouse, Editor ‘On the Ball’
‘Contemporary Issues in Sports Broadcasting’

Any queries or for more information on the Series please contact Guy Osborn (G.Osborn@westminster.ac.uk). If you are not a member of staff or student at the University you are welcome to attend but please contact Guy Osborn to confirm.

Queer London Conference
Department of English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies
University of Westminster
Saturday 23rd March 2013

Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Matt Cook (Birkbeck College, University of London)

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

This one-day conference is dedicated to a consideration of London and its role in creating, housing, reflecting and facilitating queer life. It will bring together scholars from a variety of different disciplines and backgrounds to examine representations of queer London and how London itself represents queers.

That London is a focus and centre for queer life and culture can be seen on its stages; in its bar and club scenes; in its film festivals and its representations in film; in its performance art; in its political life; in its gyms; in its history; in its book groups and book shops; and in its representations in the contemporary queer fiction of writers like Alan Hollinghurst and Sarah Waters. That London is a hub and an axis goes without saying. What the ‘Queer London’ conference offers is an opportunity for further analysis and investigation of these representations/representational platforms and consideration of the socio-cultural role that London plays in queer life.

The conference focuses on the period 1885 to the present and includes papers on topics as diverse as 1920s lesbian London; modes of queer activism; the art and photography of Francis Bacon; London’s drag scenes; Alan Hollingshurst’s queer London; queer Soho; and London’s queer sex work.

The conference programme will shortly be posted here – http://queerlondonconf.wordpress.com/

The conference will be from 10.30am until 7pm and will be held in the University of Westminster’s building at 309 Regent Street.

The conference will be FREE to attend but places are limited. In order to reserve a place, please email queerlondonconf@gmail.com, including your name, contact details and affiliation.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with Dr. Simon Avery (s.avery@westminster.ac.uk) and Dr. Katherine M. Graham (k.graham1@westminster.ac.uk).

Confirmed Participants:
Franko B, artist; Steve Beresford, Performer and Musician, University of Westminster; Mel Brimfield, artist; Gavin Butt, Goldsmith College; Jon Cairns, Central St Martins; Maria Chatzichristodoulou, curator and performer, University of Hull; Tania Chen, Musician; Rob la Frenais, Curator The Arts Catalyst; Richard Layzell, artist, Middlesex University; Stewart Lee, writer and performer; Kira O’Reilly, artist, University of Hull; Marquard Smith, University of Westminster; Margherita Sprio, University of Westminster; Gary Stevens, artist; Tracey Warr, writer and curator, Oxford Brookes University; Silvia Ziranek, artist.

Exhibiting Performance Conference, 1-3 March 2013
University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

The Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) is convening Exhibiting Performance, a three-day event considering contemporary issues central to the display of performanceart. Following on from the Exhibiting Photography (2011) and Exhibiting Video (2012) International Conferences, this event will bring together notable artists, curators and writers, and provide a forum for a number of inter-related questions: On what terms has the rise of Performance in contemporary arts taken place? How do our museums and galleries disseminate and exhibit Performance? How does the live act of Performance inform questions around the body and the audience? How is Performance documented, archived and transacted? How does technology contribute to the development of Performance?

The conference will be framed by the exhibition of work by artists and writers responding to a live performance by Philip Lee and Cally Trench, Do you remember it – or weren’t you there? at London Gallery West, and Indeterminacy, a John Cage performance by Stewart Lee, Tania Chen and Steve Beresford.

There will be four half-day themes:

Curating: With Tate Modern opening the Tanks for performance events and Marina Abramovic’s major exhibition at New York’s MoMA in 2010, is performance art now mainstream, and on what terms? How do museums and galleries understand performance art?

Dissemination and Documentation: How is performance documented ? If you missed the performance is that it? What value does an art work in a different medium which gives a memory of a performance have?

The Body and Audiences: What is the role of the body in performance today ? Why do so many performance artists perform naked ? Is the naked body a sign of authenticity or does the taboo distract from meaning ? How is the relationship between artist and audience different from or similar to other areas of art?

Performance and Technology: How does technology mediate performance ? What are the ontologies of networked, mediated and recorded performance practices ? How is videoperformance ‘live’? How do different technologies of camera (webcam, surveillance, etc) and screens (CRT, flat, projection, mobile phone, computer, etc) change our concept of performance?

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
Please send a 200-word abstract by 11 February, 2013. Successful applicants will be notified by 15 February, 2013. They must include the presenter’s name, affiliation, email and postal address, together with the paper’s title. Please send abstracts to Amanda Wheeler A.Wheeler@westminster.ac.uk

PROGRAMME AND REGISTRATION
This conference will take place from 4.00pm on Friday 1 March to Sunday 3 March 2013. The fee for registration will be:
Full conference: Standard rate £85. One day rate £50
Full conference: Student rate £40. One day rate £30.
Performance only: £10
This covers all conference documentation, refreshments, receptions and administration costs. Registration will open at the begining of February 2013.

EXHIBITION:
Do you remember it – or weren’t you there?
Philip Lee and Cally Trench
31 January 2013 – 3 March 2013
London Gallery West, School of Media, Art and Design
University of Westminster, Watford Road, Harrow
Middlesex HA1 3TP

PERFORMANCE
Indeterminacy, a John Cage performance
Sunday 3 March 2013, 6.30pm
Stewart Lee, Tania Chen and Steve Beresford
University of Westminster
309 Regent Street
London W1R 8AL

Our friends in the Art, Globalization, and Interculturality research group in the Department of Art History, University of Barcelona, are pleased to announce a ‘call for papers’ for their upcoming international conference entitled ‘Critical Cartography of Art and Visuality in the Global Age’. Please see further details below.

1st INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Critical Cartography of Art and Visuality in the Global Age.

April 26-27, 2013, Barcelona, SPAIN

AULA MAGNA. Department of Art History, University of Barcelona (UB)
AUDITORIUM. Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA)

The First International Conference Critical Cartography of Art and Visuality in the Global Age aims to engage with the complexities of the new status of art and visuality in contemporary art practice in the context of “globalization”. Focusing on the paradigms of identity, alterity, memory, locality and interculturality, as well as on new ways of understanding the political, ecological, technological, economical and scientific dimensions of the current age, the conference seeks to locate the topos from which each of these paradigms forges links between theoretical concepts and innovative work methodologies.

Scholars, artists, and research students working in the field of global art are invited to submit proposals for one of the following panel themes:

1. Media Art Documentation. New Tools for the Humanities.
Convenor: Carles Guerra, Keynote: Oliver Grau

2. The Utopian Globalists
Convenor: Anna Maria Guasch, Keynote: Jonathan Harris

3. Labor, Woman and Politics
Convenor: Juan Vicente Aliaga, Keynote: Angela Dimitrakaki

4. Art and the Post-Natural Condition
Convenor: Joaquín Barriendos Rodríguez, Keynote: T.J. Demos

Each panel will be comprised of four speakers, each allocated 20 minutes for their presentation, with the convenor encouraging debate among the presenters.

All abstract submissions (even if not selected for a panel presentation) will be considered for the publication Critical Cartography of Art and Visuality in the Global Age. New Methodologies, Concepts, and Analytic Scopes, an edited collection resulting from the conference to be published by the University of Barcelona.

A completed application form including a 300 word abstract and a brief CV should be submitted to Nasheli Jiménez del Val at artglobalage@gmail.com by February 18, 2013. Authors will be notified of acceptance for the panel, the publication, or both, by March 8, 2013.

http://artglobalizationinterculturality.com/activities/conferences/conference-2013/

30 January 2013 in room MG14 Marylebone Campus, Marylebone Road

Our friends in Westminster’s School of Architecture and the Built Environment are hosting an event next week entitled ‘What is the role of culture in the regeneration of the areas around the Olympic Park?’ The event draws together practitioners and academics from a variety of professional backgrounds who will share their experiences and perspectives of cultural projects in the areas around the Olympic Park.

6.10 Introduction – Chair: Marion Roberts – Professor of Urban Design – University of Westminster

6.20 Dr Nancy Stevenson – Programme Leader: Tourism and Events – The Cultural Olympiad and cultural legacy

6.35 Ceryl Evans – Head of Museums and Culture, London Borough of Hackney – Mapping the Change

6.50 Dr Isaac Marrero Guillamón – Post Doctoral Researcher, Birkbeck – Critical art and the Olympic State of Exception

7.05 Adriana Marques – Principal Advisor for Arts and Culture, London Legacy Development Corporation – Culture at the heart of the Olympic Legacy

7.20 Liza Fior – Partner, Muf Architecture/Art – Future project and proposals

7.35 Questions and Discussion

Contact Details: For further details and to book please follow this link
http://culturalolympicpark.eventbrite.com

Staff and students at University of Westminster are collaborating with Hanmi Gallery, Fitzrovia, on a forthcoming exhibition entitled ‘The Global Archive’. Please do come along for the Private View.

‘The Global Archive’
24th Thursday January – 9th Saturday February 2013, 12-6 pm (Monday closed)

Private View : 23rd Wednesday January, 6 – 9 pm

Artists: Tom Corby, Shezad Dawood, Young-In Hong, susan pui san lok
Curated by: Marquard Smith with Emma Brasó and Nina Trivedi

In collaboration with: Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster, and the International Association for Visual Culture

Artists:

Tom Corby is an artist and writer interested in issues of climate, technology and systems. His interdisciplinary works have been presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as internationally at the Japan Media Art Festival or the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe. He lives and works in London.

One of the winners of the 2011 Abraaj Capital Art Prize, Shazed Dawood’s work has been exhibited internationally, including presentations at Tate Britain, the 53rd Venice Biennale, and the Busan Biennale, 2010. Recent projects include a solo touring exhibition that opened at Modern Art Oxford in April 2012, and the installation of his New Dream Machine Project II at Parasol Unit. In 2012, he was nominated for the Jarman Award. He lives and works in London.

Young-In Hong completed her PhD at Goldsmiths in 2011. She has developed a number of site-specific projects including Double Encounter at i-myu Projects, London and The Performing City in Aicho, Japan. Recent group exhibitions include the Museum of Art and Design, New York, Rokeby Gallery, London, and A Foundation Liverpool. She lives and works between London and Seoul.

susan pui san lok is an artist and writer based in London. Her multidisciplinary works evolve out of interests in notions of nostalgia and aspiration, place and migration, translation and diaspora. Recent solo projects include Lightness (2012) and Faster, Higher (2008), both in collaboration with Film & Video Umbrella, DIY Ballroom/Live (2007) and Golden (2005-7), an exhibition/residency at Beaconsfield, London, and Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester.

Curators:

Marquard Smith curates, writes, programmes, commissions, and edits. He is Director of the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture at University of Westminster, and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Visual Culture.

Emma Brasó was curatorial fellow at CCA Glasgow in 2012. She is a curator and art historian conducting a PhD on pseudonymity at University of Westminster.

Nina Trivedi is currently a doctoral researcher at University of Westminster. She has a MFA in Curating from Goldsmiths College and has had recent curatorial projects in London and Berlin.

FRIDAY 23 NOVEMBER, 2012 2-7PM (followed by exhibition opening and reception)
MG14, UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER, 35 MARYLEBONE ROAD, LONDON NW1 5LS

An international symposium organised by the Architecture Research Group at the University of Westminster in conjunction with SOAS Seminars on Turkey.

The making of modern Ankara is a momentous yet oft-neglected episode in twentieth century history. The transformation of this ancient Anatolian town into the capital of the Turkish Republic captured the world’s attention during the interwar period, when Ankara became a laboratory of modernism and nation building.
Largely designed by European architects, the new capital embodied the reformist ethos of a secular state firmly projected towards the West. Today, as this sprawling city of over four millions seeks to reinvent its identity, its modern development is the subject of growing scholarship and public interest.

The half-day symposium brings together a panel of scholars from architecture, planning, art history, heritage, and Turkish studies to revisit the making of modern Ankara in a cross-disciplinary perspective, while also debating its legacy on the eve of the Republic’s 90th anniversary. The event will be followed by the launch of Building Identities, an exhibition about Ankara’s Republican architecture curated by the Turkish Chamber of Architects, Ankara branch.

THE EVENT IS FREE FOR ALL. PLEASE BOOK AT themakingofmodernankara.eventbrite.co.uk

PARTICIPANTS WILL INCLUDE: Elvan Altan Ergut, Middle East Technical University Martina Becker, ENGLOBE/Marie Curie, Middle East Technical University Lindsay Bremner, University of Westminster Eray Çaylı, University College London Davide Deriu, University of Westminster Benjamin Fortna, SOAS Zeynep Kezer, University of Newcastle Melania Savino, SOAS, Kunsthistorische Institut Florence

Please come along, we will be hosting a reception to celebrate the publication of Journal of Visual Culture’s ‘The Ways of Seeing 40th Anniversary Issue’, published this month. Join us on Saturday 8th September from 4:00-5:00 at King’s College, University of London to raise a glass (or two). The launch coincides with the three-day ‘Ways of Seeing John Berger’ conference organized by King’s and the British Library. You can find details of the venue for the Reception, and the conference more generally here: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/ahri/centres/lifewriting/berger/index.aspx

Edited by Raiford Guins, Juliette Kristensen, and susan pui san lok, our ‘Ways of Seeing 40th Anniversary Issue’ includes contributions from: Mieke Bal, Geoffrey Batchen, Sonia Boyce, Alan Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Lisa Cartwright, Jill H. Casid, Laurie Beth Clark, Mike Dibb, Clive Dilnot, Jennifer A. González, Raiford Guins, Ben Highmore, Richard Hollis, Martin Jay, Guy Julier, Louis Kaplan, Juliette Kristensen, susan pui san lok, Peter Lunenfeld, Tara McPherson, Tom Overton, Griselda Pollock, Adrian Rifkin, Julian Stallabrass, Marita Sturken, John Timberlake, and Ming Wong. Further details can be found here: http://vcu.sagepub.com/content/current

It’s with pleasure that we welcome our new Junior Visiting Research Fellow, Yuthika Sharma, who will be hosted by the Institute from 25th June until 25th October 2012. Yuthika is finishing her PhD on the visual culture of Mughal and British Delhi, India between 1750-1857, at the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York. She is co-curator and co-editor, with William Dalrymple, of Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857 Asia Society, New York, February 6 -May 7, 2012 (Yale University Press, 2012). While resident at the Institute, Yuthika is writing about the historical transition from painting into photography in Victorian Delhi, and on contemporary ‘Mughal’ paintings by marginalized artist guilds in present-day north India.