Call for Abstracts
Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures
A conference at the intersection of History, Art, Design, Architecture and Film
December 1-3, 2022
Virtual
https://amps-research.com/conference/visioning/
Submission deadline for abstracts: 01 July 2022 (Round 1), 20 October 2022 (Round 2)
One century ago the City Symphony was at the cutting edge of visual representation. It was the site of some of the most challenging concepts and ideas the art world had ever seen. Its ruptures in spatiotemporal representation were seen as natural extensions of the avant-garde: cubist painting in the mode of Braque, the architectural visions of Vladimir Tatlin, the spatio-sculptural works of Aleksandr Rodchenko, the photography of Moholy-Nagy and later Florence Henri, to name but a few.
The intervening 100 years have seen periodic reengagements with spatial reframing in these media. They have also witnessed the emergence of new modes of representation in the worlds of art, design, heritage, cultural studies and the social sciences more broadly. Today, artists, architects, painters, sculptors and designers can work seamlessly across a plethora of fields: video, digital photography, 3D printing, parametric architecture, algorithmic animation, projection mapping, photogrammetry, virtual reality, and more.
If we look specifically at spatial design, virtual reality is increasingly seen as ‘everyday’ for architects and urban designers. For artists, ‘the digital’ is now a typical mode of operation. If we consider film, algorithmic video editing, motion capture and image digitalization are now all ‘run of the mill’ technologies. In museology, the experiential interactive installation accompanies static exhibitions. Indeed, the moving image, both analogue and digital, is now a standard area of historical study in itself – the city symphony included.
Taking the City Symphony, and its historic moment in time as a starting point, this conference seeks to explore of the past, present and future of how we visualise people, places, cities and life. It welcomes insights into the history of painting from a spatiotemporal standpoint; the influence and evolution of the photographic representation of place; the role of sculpture in exploring and integrating space. It invites filmmakers exploring city representation, architects, urban planners and designers engaged in the visualisation of buildings, cities…. and more.
It welcomes contributions from across disciplines and its strands will be formed around contributions. Several themes are set in advance, including the areas of research interest to the partner institutions:
Queen’s University Belfast – Lived Space, Past and Present
Cape Peninsula University of Technology – Representing Space, Place, and Liminality
National University of Singapore – The Screen as Surface, Site and Space [details below]
FORMATS
Zoom: We welcome live presentations via Zoom. Presenters are recommended to download the Zoom app.
Pre-recorded: Pre-recorded presentations or films will be available permanently on the AMPS Academic YouTube channel.
Lightning Talks: For delegates wishing to present shorter presentations of their work. Subject to the level of interest.
Written papers: In all cases, delegates can present full written papers for inclusion in all associated conference publications.
Zoom: (15-20 mins)
Pre-recorded video: (15-20 mins)
Lightning Talk: (5-6 mins)
Written Papers: (3000 words)
PUBLICATIONS
The publishers that AMPS works with include UCL Press, Routledge Taylor & Francis, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Vernon Press, Libri Publishing and Intellect Books.
Conference outputs include the AMPS Proceedings Series, ISSN 2398-9467; Special Issue Publications of the academic journal Architecture_MPS ISSN 2020-9006; Books from this event will be developed by Intellect Books, with short films available on the AMPS Academic YouTube Channel.
Written papers are optional. If submitted they should be 3,000 word length. Formatting instructions to follow after the conference. All papers are double- blind peer reviewed for the AMPS Conference Proceedings Series. Subject to review, selected authors will be invited to develop longer versions as articles in the academic journal Architecture_MPS or in specially produced conference books.
SUBMISSIONS & REGISTRATION:
Registration Delegate Fee: $395 USD | Audience Fee: $195 USD
QUERIES:
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THE SCREEN AS SURFACE, SITE AND SPACE
01-03 December 2022
Virtual – National University of Singapore
https://amps-research.com/visioning-nus/
Submission deadline for abstracts: 01 July 2022 (Round 1), 05 October 2022 (Round 2)
Screen-based devices have become an inexorable part of our everyday lives. They include (but are not limited to) apparatuses for cinematic entertainment, imaging, surveillance, social networking, creative expression, documentation, 3D modelling, real-time collaborations, and hosting immersive environments. They exist in many forms and sizes, from touchscreens on compact smart devices to building facades and infrastructure that serve as the canvas for massive media architecture projections in urban environments. Electronic visual displays proliferate in most industries: art and design, healthcare, IT, research and development. At the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic, screens acquired greater relevance, as the ‘window’ to online interactions, offering solace and immediacy remotely across geographical distances and time zones.
With the screen serving as the subject of discourse, we probe into its earliest developments informed by proto-cinematic forms of entertainment. One can trace the mechanisation of vision in the late nineteenth century that gave rise to a cinema of attractions and new technologies of seeing, in photography, actualité films, and opaque projections. Merging cinematic immersion with the haptic virtues of the screen, multi-screen artworks and interactive installations imbue new media with an environmental dimension, privileging a more mobile and embodied form of spectatorship. Meanwhile, the digital age introduced an unprecedented range of virtualities, expanding the lexicon of extended realities to encompass augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual worlds – with varying degrees of interactivity but all of which are mediated through LCD screens and head-mounted displays.
What is evident when exploring these optical histories is the primacy of space for the structuring of experience, and how spatial ontology is continuously redefined by milestones in screen technology development. By reflecting on historical precedents, how might this further enrich our understanding of the materiality of screen as media?
FORMAT HIGHLIGHT:
Pre-recorded presentations and short films welcome.
Films and videos to be hosted on the AMPS Academic YouTube Channel.
Book publications with Intellect Books.
Journal Special Issue with UCL Press.
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