Other Theories
The current transformation of photography has nothing to do with technological developments; in fact, it is more than ever influenced by a great variety of disciplines such as philosophy or gender studies. There is no doubt that these multidisciplinary movements in modern photography affect our way of viewing photographs, as well as what we think and what we understand by them.
In contrast to the traditional single theory of photography, does the need for multiple and more open approaches exist?Can these new focuses help us to better decipher new meanings and uses of photography in modern society?
Friday, 15th of May
10.00 - 10.50 h
Emergency claims.
Ariella Azoulay. Author of Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books, 2008).
This paper asks under which conditions photographs can make truth claims and normative claims of a special kind – emergency claims: ‘this is an emergency’; ‘something exceptional must be done’. In order to answer this question I will briefly discuss the ontology of the photography (and the photograph) and look closely at some photographs in which one can see traces of disaster, but under certain conditions are seen only as traces of ‘a disaster from their point of view’.
10.50 - 11.40 h
Quality will last, the price, forgotten! Photography: from practice to theory.
Jordi Bernadó. Photographer.
Jordi Bernadó will talk about the practice and theory of photography, from the perspective of his own work.
11.40 - 12.20 h
Break.
12.20 - 13.10 h
Social practices as a theory of photography: an anthropological approach.
Elizabeth Edwards. Professor in Cultural History of Photograpy and Senior Reserach Fellow, University of the Arts London.
This paper will explore two key strands which have emerged in anthropology which attempt to move the critical debate on photography away from the dominant Euro-American model to look at the way in which the understanding of photographic practices in other cultural spaces might illuminate and rebalance understanding of the medium. It argues that such an approach moves thinking about photography beyond the visual itself to explore the way in which photographic meaning is made in material and multi-sensory domains and through the social relations which entangle the production and consumption of photographs.
13.10 - 14.00 h
Philosophy and Photography: social ontology of the image.
Peter Osborne. Professor of Philosophy and director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University, London, and coeditor of Radical Philosophy magazine.
Photography has played a central role in debates about art and the real for over 150 years. Photographic uses of digital technologies have revived some of these debates, in new artistic and social contexts. This paper will reflect upon some of the ways in which these contexts require the reformulation of some of the philosophical issues at stake. In particular, it will argue that the question of significance of photography ‘post-digitalisation’ hinges on the relationship between the ontology of the de-realised image and the historical ontology of social being, under the conditions of the increasingly abstract form of social relations in general.
16.00 - 16.50 h
Cultural studies and photography: between identities and communities.
Jan Baetens. Professor, Lovaina University, Belgium.
This paper has a twofold purpose: on the one hand, it will present some general ideas inspired by the special perceptive of cultural studies that stresses the notion of identity, the relationship between an artistic and social practice and the ideas of a nation, social group, community etc. And on the other, it will present a more detailed analysis of photography in Belgium, a multilingual and multicultural country with no strong national culture or feeling. I shall try to show that despite these conditions, there is such a thing as a Belgian photograph. I shall defend this thesis using Gilles Deleuze’s ideas on so-called minor cultures.
16.50 - 17.40 h
Visual devices, theoretical devices: photography and the digital image.
Guillermo Yáñez Tapia. Director of Investigation at the Centre of Visual Studies, Chile.
This paper will examine how, as part of developing the technical image, both photographic and digital devices are installed following different explanatory theoretical devices. This issue will help shed some light on what photography is and what it isn’t as a basis for further thought.
17.40 - 18.00 h
Break.
18.00 - 20.00 h
Round table:The theory of photography:
A ‘transdiscipline’?
Moderator: José Carlos Suárez. Doctor of Art History, professor at Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, and art critic.
Participants: Jordi Bernadó. Photographer / Jan.
Baetens. Professor, Lovaina University, Belgium. / David Pérez. Professor at the Polytechic University, Valencia and art critic. / Antonio Ansón. Writer.
Biographies
Ariella Azoulay
Author of Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books, 2008)
She is the author of Act of State (2008, in Hebrew - Etgar publisher, Atto di stato in Italian, Bruno Mondadori), The Civil Contract of Photography (2008, Zone Books, 2007 Resling), Once Upon A Time: Photography following Walter Benjamin (Bar Ilan University Press, 2006, in Hebrew), Death's Showcase (MIT Press, 2001 - Winner of The Affinity Award, ICP) and TRAining for ART (Hakibutz Hameuchad and The Porter Institute Publishers, 2000, in Hebrew).
She is co-author with Adi Ophir of This Regime Which Is Not One: Occupation and Democracy between the Sea and The River (1967- ), 2008, Resling (in Hebrew), and Bad Days, 2002, Resling (in Hebrew).
Curator of Act of State: 1967-2007 (Minshar Gallery, 2007), Everything Could Be Seen (Um Al Fahem Gallery, 2004), The Angel of History (Hertzela Museum of Art, Mishkan Le-Omanut, Ein Harod, 2001).
Director
of documentary films, At
Nightfall
(2005), I
Also Dwell Among Your Own People: Conversations with Azmi BisharaThe
Chain Food
(2004), The
Angel of History
(2000) and A
Sign from Heaven
(1999).
Jordi Bernadó
Photographer
Jordi Bernadó is interested in photography as a means of explaining the city, architecture and contemporary landscapes. He sees photography as a path to knowledge. His ambition and rigour when decoding his environment make for extensive, personal and complex work. Contradiction, absurdity, fate and irony are the sources Jordi Bernadó plays with to reveal what is around him.
Jordi Bernadó's photographs can be found in public and private collections such as Fundació "La Caixa", Fundación Telefónica, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Deutsche Bank Collection, Artium, MUSAC, Fundació Vila Casas and Banc Sabadell, amongst others. His work has been exhibited in many exhibitions, both solo and collective in Spain and abroad, including the Artist Space in New York, the Vu' gallery in Paris, the Filter Space in Hamburg, Museo Civico Riva del Garda, Fundación Telefónica in Madrid, Fotografie Forum International in Frankfurt, MAXXI in Rome, Centre d'Art la Panera in Lleida and Galeria Senda in Barcelona.
He
won the FotoPress
grant in 1993 and the Endesa X grant in 2007. He has published over
twenty books, including Good
News* always read the fine print
(winner of the Laus Award, 1999) and Very
very bad news,
which received a special mention from PhotoEspaña'02 for Best
Photography Book and the Award for Best Art Book published in Spain
from the Ministry of Culture and True
Loving i altres contes
(selected as one of the best photography books at PhotoEspaña'07).
In 2008 he published Lucky
Looks,
and in 2009, Welcome
to Espaiñ.
Elizabeth Edwards
Professor of the Cultural History of Photography and senior researcher at the University of the Arts London
Professor
and Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Arts London. A
visual and historical anthropologist, she works on the complex
relationships between photographs, anthropology and history, in many
different contexts from fieldwork to museum exhibitions. She is
especially interested in the social and material practices of
photography in both historical and contemporary contexts, and has
published extensively in the field. Previously she was Curator of
Photographs at Pitt Rivers Museum and Professor
in Visual Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Her recent
publications include 'Entangled Documents: Visualised Histories' in
Susan Meiselas' In
History
(2008), 'Photographs and the Sound of History' in Visual
Anthropology Review
(2006), Sensible
Objects: Colonialism, Material Culture and the Senses,
ed. with C. Gosden & R Philips (2006), Photographs
Objects Histories,
ed. with Janice Hart (2004) and Raw
Histories
(2001). She is currently completing a book on photography and
historical imagination 1885-1918.
Peter Osborne
Professor of Modern European Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University, London, and an editor of the journal Radical Philosophy
Peter
Osborne
is Professor of Modern European Philosophy and Director of the Centre
for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University,
London and an editor of the journal Radical
Philosophy.
His books include The
Politics of Time: Modernity and Avant-Garde
(1995), Philosophy
in Cultural Theory
(2000), Conceptual
Art (2002;
Spanish edition 2006), MarxWalter
Benjamin: Critical Evaluations in Cultural Theory
(3 Volumes, Routledge, 2005). His writing on contemporary art
includes essays on Victor Burgin, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tracey
Emin, the Chapman Brothers, Gerhard Richter and Robert Smithson. He
has contributed to Afterall,
Art
History,
October,
Oxford
Art Journal,
the anthology Where
is the Photograph?
(2003; Spanish edition 2007) and catalogues for Manifesta
5
(San Sebastian, 2004), Time
Zones
(Tate Modern, 2004), Zones
of Contact,
the 2006 Biennale of Sydney, and The
Quick and the Dead,
Walker Center, Minneapolis (2009). A collection of his recent essays,
El
arte más allá de la estética,
will be published by CENDEAC, Murcia, summer 2009.
Jan Baetens
Lecturer at the University of Lovaina, Belgium
Jan Baetens is a lecturer in cultural studies and literary theory at the University of Lovaina. He has published or edited some fifty volumes (in French, Flemish and English) in the fields of research where he is an expert, such as contemporary French literature, the theory of photography, or the relationship between images and words. He is very interested in paraliterary genres such as photonovels, graphical novels and novelisation (understood as adapting a film to a book). These subjects have been at the heart of numerous publications, including his most recent, La novellisation. Du film au livre, Brussels: Les Impressions Nouvelles.
Jan
Baetens is a member of the IAWIS board (www.iawis.org) and editor of
several magazines, such as Image
(&) Narrative (www.imageandnarrative.be), as well as a writer and author of a dozen
poetry books (in French, although his mother tongue is Flemish). As a
poet he won the Triennial Award (2005-2008) from the French Community
in Belgium.
Guillermo Yáñez Tapia
Director of the Research Area at the Visual Studies Centre in Chile
Guillermo Yáñez Tapia is taking a PhD in Philosophy, specialising in Aesthetics, and a Master's Degree in Art, specialising in Art Theory and Postgraduate Degree in Art and New Technologies from the University of Chile. He also has a Bachelor's Degree in Photography and a professional qualification as a photographer. His academic work has centred on Visual Studies, the Theory of the Technical Image, the Aesthetics of Photography, Digital Photography and the Theory of Digital Editing. Published both nationally and internationally, his articles and essays have looked at the idea of representation, technical devices for images, the new place of the referent and the circulation of images on the contemporary photography scene.
His current work as an academic, researcher and essayist focuses on the need to set up a place for thinking about visual ideas in what has become known as late capitalism. It centres mainly on the cultural consequences of installing digital images within a model for consuming and aestheticising goods.
José Carlos Suárez
Doctor in Art History, lecturer at Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona and art critic
Graduate in Geography and History (Art History Section) and Doctor in Art History from the University of Barcelona.
Lecturer at Universitat Rovira i Virgili since 1983, where he teaches 20th-Century Art, Photography and Film History. Since 1993 he has been director of the Film Research Unit at the Arts Department and since 1999 he has been director of the Film Class at Universitat Rovira i Virgili. His work as a researcher follows two key lines: contemporary art (20th and 21st century) in general and Spanish art in particular, including art criticism; and Film History, centred mainly on Spain and its interrelations with Art History.
He
is a member of the Spanish Association of Film Historians and
Associació Cinema Rescat and sits on the respective boards of
directors. He is also a member of the International Association of
Art Critics and the Catalan Association of Art Critics.
David Pérez
Lecturer at the Polytechnic University in Valencia and art critic
He graduated in Philosophy and Art History and is a Doctor in Fine Art. He lectures at the Polytechnic University in Valencia. In 1999 he was in charge of the Spanish Pavilion at the 48th Venice Biennale.
He
won the Premi
Espais a la Crítica d'Art in 1991 and 1996 and the Premi AMUCA
d'Assaig i Crítica in 2007. His books include La
mirada contra la Historia
(1995), Femenino,
Plural: Reflexiones desde la diversidad
(1996), Del
arte impuro. Entre lo público y lo privado
(1997), Malas
artes. Experiencia estética y legitimación institucional
(2003), La
certeza vulnerable. Cuerpo y fotografía en el siglo XXI
(2004) and Sin
marco: arte y actitud en Juan Hidalgo, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina y
Esther Ferrer
(2008). Since 2006 he has led the art dialogues project La
voz en la mirada
and the accompanying DVDs.
Antonio Ansón
Writer
His essays include El istmo de las luces (1994), Novelas como álbumes (2000) and El limpiabotas de Daguerre (2007), and he has edited foto & poesía (2002), Los mil relatos de la imagen y uno más (2004) and Para qué fotografiar (2006). He was director of photography courses at Menéndez Pelayo International University and, together with Ferdinando Scianna, the forthcoming ENCUENTROS de PHOTOESPAÑA Las palabras y las fotos. He edits the Cuarto oscuro collection of photography books. His recent works include the novel Llamando a las puertas del cielo (Artemisa, 2007) and the bilingual French-Spanish edition of Pantys mortels (Li Grand Us, 2008).