[artinfo] film and media conference, istanbul, june 2006

[Nezih Erdogan]

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPATION
FILM AND MEDIA CONFERENCE
SHIFTING LANDSCAPES: FILM AND MEDIA IN EUROPEAN CONTEXT
JUNE 16-18, 2006
ISTANBUL BI™LGI™ UNIVERSITY, TURKEY

http://filmandmedia.bilgi.edu.tr/

Within the last decade and a half, European film and media have faced new
challenges due to the macro processes of international migration, political,
cultural and economic globalization, as well as the gradual rise of the
European Union as a new political-economic and cultural power bloc. Although
there is a vein of scholarship that situates these developments in the more
neutral realm of 'mixing of cultures', 'hybridization', 'experiences of
border-crossing', and 'new freedoms and deterritorialization', it should be
noted that a good portion of recent films and other works point to a series
of significant social, economic and cultural problems such as: racism,
sexism, unemployment, urban bias, etc. In the midst of these structural
transformations, and 70 years after Benjamin's seminal essay, "Work of Art
in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," another element, digitization, is
now a force majeur that is altering production, distribution and exhibition
of artwork in an unprecedented way. Changes in both technology and the
sociopolitical and economic spheres are manifested not only in the domain of
artistic work itself in the form of content, aesthetics and form, but also
in the physical sphere of social life. We now experience a constant flux of
simultaneous fragmentation and integration through the aggregating and
disaggregating forces of global, regional and local mobility both materially
in terms of individual/social reality, and virtually through film,
audiovisual media, CMC-and, more significantly, through the ongoing
convergence of these media. While broadcasting is losing ground to
narrowcasting, the movie theaters of the "arcades" have been replaced by the
multiplexes of shopping malls, turning spectatorship and movie-going into a
completely new sport and the cinematic encounter into a "viewing strip"
where the screen extends beyond the domain of the theater and into the realm
of a multitude of other spectacles from shop windows to LCD screens to cell
phones.

The aim of this conference is to address the complex and intertwined issues
in European film and audiovisual media arising from the transformations in
technology and social/urban landscapes, and in the macro forces of economics
and politics. These changes have significant implications for the
production, distribution and exhibition/consumption of European audiovisual
works, thus creating new micro-realities "within" and "across", and beyond
the bounds of nationality, geography, space, language, ethnicity, race,
gender and sexuality, age, socioeconomic status, etc. We invite
contributions from researchers and professionals from a broad cross-section
of related schools and disciplines.

Suggested areas of inquiry include (but are not limited to):

   a.. Production/Distribution/Exhibition
   b.. Film/Media and identity
   c.. Gender
   d.. Race/Ethnicity
   e.. Political economy
   f.. Urban topography/architecture and film/media
   g.. Consumption/consumer society
   h.. New media technologies
   i.. Digitization
   j.. Globalization/Regionalization
   k.. Film/Media reception
   l.. Questions of cultural imperialism
   m.. Territorialization/De-territorialization/Re-territorialization
   n.. Cultural Heritage/Preservation

Please submit a 250-word abstract by March 15, 2006, by e-mail to Serazer
Pekerman (conference at bilgi.edu.tr)

Please include: Title of Paper, Full Name (s), Affiliation, Current
Position, an e-mail address and at least 3 keywords that best describe the
subject of your submission.

http://filmandmedia.bilgi.edu.tr/