events: Visual Studies Today – The Power of Images

Visual Studies as Academic Discipline — Schedule

Thursday, 7th November

Introduction:
9.00 Krešimir Purgar, Center for Visual Studies, Zagreb:
After Pictorial Turn: Visual Studies as Academic Discipline

Key note speaker:
9.30 W.J.T. Michell, University of Chicago:
Seeing Madness: Insanity, Media, and Visual Culture

11.00 Coffee break

Plenary speaker:
11.15 Marquard Smith, Westminster University, London:
The Art School: The Future for ‘Theory’?

11.45 Visual Studies and University Curricula

• Clemena Antonova, University of Oxford:
  Visual Studies before Visual Studies: “The Science of Art” in Early Soviet Russia
• Magda Szcześniak and Łukasz Zaremba, University of Warsaw:
  Iconoclasm and Counterfeit – Polish post-1989 Visual Culture

13.00 Aesthetics of New Media

• Žarko Paić, University of Zagreb:
  Technosphere – New Digital Aesthetics? The Body as Event, Interactivity and Visualization of Ideas
• Katarina Peović Vuković, University of Rijeka:
  Postmodernism and its Material Character
• Boris Ružić, University of Rijeka:
  Visual Study of the Conjuration of Images in Media Texts

14.15 Lunch break

15.45 Film studies and Disciplinary Ramifications

• Asbjørn Grønstad, University of Bergen:
  Is There a Transmedial Dispositif? Aesthetic Epistemes and the Question of Disciplinarity
• Saša Vojković, University of Zagreb:
  Reformulating the Symbolic Order: World Cinema and Vision Which Exceeds the Fictional Universe
• Silvia Casini, University of Venice Ca' Foscari:
  Guided by Images: From Jean-Luc Godard to Brain Scans

17.00 Images and Social Sciences

• Petra Bernhardt & Andreas Pribersky, University of Vienna:
  “Missionaries in a Foreign Field”: On the Status of the Visual in Political Science
• Philipp Jeandrée, Goldsmiths College, London:
  The Pictorial Turn Unnoticed...? What Visual Studies has to Offer to Political Thinking
• Ory Bartal, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jeruzalem:
  Social Sciences meet the Humanities: A Research Methodology for the Creative Industries

18.15 Closing of the first day

Friday, 8th November

Plenary speaker:
09.00 Michele Cometa, University of Palermo:
The Challenge of Cave Art: On the Future of Visual Culture

10.00 New Theoretical Perspectives in Visual Studies

• Virve Sarapik, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallin:
  Speech Act of Pictures
• Noa Hazan, Kibbutzim College, Tel Aviv:
  Toward a Responsible Theory of Visual Studies in Mass Media Era
• Almira Ousmanova, European Humanities University, Vilnius:
  Local and Global in Shaping of the Research Agenda for Visual Culture Studies
• Ilaria Fornacciari, University of Basel:
  The Complexity and Stakes of Pictorial Knowledge: About Foucault Reading Panofsky

11.45 Coffee break

12.00 Fashion Studies Today

• Katarina Nina Simončič, University of Zagreb:
  Trousers and Skirt in Fashion Culture – Symbol of Gender?
• Irena Mihalić, University of Zagreb:
  Revival in Fashion: Revaluation of Past Styles in New Settings
• Petra Krpan, University of Zagreb:
  Contemporary Fashion and Images of New Media
• Silva Kalčić, University of Zagreb:
  Neo-Orientalism in Visual Culture – Fashion in the Contemporary Photographic and Video Image
• Zdenko Zeman, Marija Geiger Zeman, Suzana Marjanić, Institute for Social Sciences Ivo Pilar/Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb:
  Do you Wear Green? The Fate of Eco-Ideas in the Fashion World

14.00 Lunch break

15.30 Performance, Body, Image

• Andrej Mirčev, University of Osijek:
  Towards a Performative Cartography of Images
• Josipa Bubaš:
  Margins of Visual Culture – Body Images in the Performative Context

16.30 The Look of the Other

• Marko Stamenković, University of Ghent:
  Necropictures: The “South” as a Place to Look
• Scott Manning Stevens, Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies, Chicago:
  Visuality and the Reorientation of Native American Studies

17.30 Final discussion

18.00 Closing of the conference

Useful information

Getting from the airport

For those coming to Zagreb by plane, there are two viable options: First, you can take a taxi from the airport to the city center that should cost you around 150 kn (20 Eur). Going back to the airport is less expensive (due to different companies running service to and from the airport) and should be around 100 kn (15 Eur). Second option is to take a bus service standing right out of the exit of International arrivals. The cost is around 40 kn (6 Eur), but the bus will take you to the Central Bus Station. From there the best you can do is to take a taxi to the Hotel Astoria (around 30 kn). So, by combining bus from the airport and then taxi you spare half of the taxi fare but probably make a trip taking considerably longer time (an hour, cca, instead of half an hour).

Staying at the recommended hotel

The organizers have managed to get considerably lower prices then regular (40% off) with the Hotel Astoria in the center of Zagreb. This is very decent hotel making part of the Best Western Premier hotel chain. Please, check their web site for more details. Included in the price you get abundant breakfast and W-LAN in all rooms free of charge.

The prices for our participants are: 72 Eur for Queen single room; 82 Eur for King or Twin room, single use. If used by two persons King or Twin go for 92 Eur. Important thing: these rates are obtainable only by contacting sales office of the hotel directly by e-mail and quoting Visual Studies as Academic Discipline as a ground for reduction. You can't get these prices via reservation engines. The e-mail address to make reservation is sales@hotelastoria.hr or tel. +385 1 48 08 911.

The above prices are available for reservations made until October 11th. After that date reservations are also possible but according to the hotel's availability and price policy actual at that moment. At the moment of reservation you will have to guarantee your arrival with a credit card. But check this out with their sales personnel for more details.

Access map: How to get from the Hotel Astoria to the conference venue – Faculty for Textile Technology

Choosing other hotels

Should anybody wish different accommodation, we can recommend, among others, Four Points by Sheraton (which is actually the hotel closest to the conference venue, but with taxi service as the only reasonable option to reach the conference site). The advantage of this hotel is its value for money and disadvantage being its location in not particularly attractive neighborhood. Other option is Hotel Dubrovnik situated in the very heart of Zagreb. The connection from Hotel Dubrovnik to conference venue is cca 15 min by tram no. 6 or 11 heading Črnomerec. These two hotels advertise higher prices that you can check on booking.com. Also close to Hotel Astoria is Arcotel Allegra, very recommended option but for those travelling financially more relaxed, as well.

Considerably cheaper option than anything mentioned is Youth Hostel in Petrinjska 77 where interested participants can get accommodation for as little as 120 kn (16 Eur). The nice thing is that Youth Hostel is also only few meters away from the recommended Astoria Best Western.

During the conference

As you can see on the program schedule, due to a large number of participants and only two available days, four morning sessions of both days will run parallel in two different rooms, but only after key-note and plenary speakers have their speeches made available for everybody. On the first day of the conference, during lunch break, we will probably be able to offer all presenters a catering at Lauba center for contemporary art which is an old refurbished factory featuring also a decent restaurant. This Lauba place is only three minutes walk from our conference venue – Faculty for Textile Technology – down Baruna Filipovića Street. On the second day, we will try to provide some snacks on the premise (or a bit more, if appropriate donation falls from the sky).