[artinfo] CALL FOR PAPERS: GAZING INTO THE 21st CENTURY

[Oliver Grau]

CALL FOR PAPERS

GAZING INTO THE 21st CENTURY : CONFRONTING IMAGE NAIVETÉ
Second international conference on Image Science in Goettweig
April 24th - 26th 2008
www.donau-uni.ac.at/dis

The DEPARTMENT FOR IMAGE SCIENCE (DIS) at DANUBE UNIVERSITY is pleased
to announce the second international Goettweig conference on Image Science.

Never before has the world of images changed so 
fast, have we been exposed to so many different 
image forms and never before has the way images 
are produced transformed so drastically. Images 
are advancing into new domains: Television became 
a global zapping field of thousands of channels; 
projection screens enter our cities, and cell 
phones transmit micromovies in real time. We are 
witnessing the rise of the image into a virtual 
spatial image. Science, politics and 
entertainment profit from new dimensions in the 
creation of images and their emotive effects. 
Since the 60s, arts and sciences are connected in 
the fundamental research media art undertakes, 
whose roots lie in partially unknown traditions.

A multitude of new possibilities in producing, 
projecting and distributing individual images has 
led to the formation of new image genres. The 
spiral movement of image history from innovation, 
understanding and iconoclasm results in the 21st 
Century in a global interweaving. These major 
transformations have hit society to a large 
extent unprepared and as we gradually start to 
recognize the demand to address the current 
knowledge explosion appropriately, we face the 
challenge to expand our forms of visualization, 
our “orders and systems of visibility”, and to 
reflect critically and scientifically on them. 
While our written culture has produced a 
differentiated and dedicated paedagogy, our 
society still lacks a conscious education 
concerning images - up to a degree that we can 
speak of visual illiteracy.

A central problem of current cultural policy, 
aside from poor knowledge on image procedures, 
stems from serious lack of knowledge about the 
origins of the audiovisual media. This stands in 
complete contradistinction to current demands for 
more media and image competence. The conference 
therefore explores the thinking space and the 
utopias, which were initiated by artists again 
and again - now on the expanded terrain of image 
science - and searches for the inspirations these 
new worlds receive from the arts. What influence 
does the medium have on the iconic character of 
the image? What chances and challenges do museums 
and image dealers face with the “liquidity” of 
the image?

The interdisciplinary conference aims to step up 
to the challenge of building a “visual 
inventory”. One goal of the Conference therefore 
is to build cross disciplinary exchange between 
the Humanities AND the Natural Sciences.


PROPOSALS are welcome to the following topics and fields:

NEW IMAGE FORMS AND TECHNIQUES
(New visualization techniques in Nano-, Bio-, 
Neurosciences, Architecture, Photography, Digital 
Collections Management, etc.)

NEW STRATEGIES IN VISUAL ARGUMENTATION
(in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities, Politics, 
Advertising, Comics, Diagrams & Models, Visual 
Music, etc.)

NEW PRACTICES OF IMAGE TRANSFER
(Global economy, Tagging, Micromovies, Flickr, 
Second Life, You Tube, Google Earth etc.)


DEADLINE PROPOSALS :  October 21st 2007
Conference Languages: German/English.


PAPERS
One-page abstract or complete paper must be 
submitted by email. Upon acceptance, complete 
papers must be submitted by March 21, 2008 as PDF 
to andrea.kaufmann at donau-uni.ac.at. All rights 
will remain with the author. Papers will be 
selected for presentations. Proposals for panel 
discussions are encouraged and individual papers 
may be grouped by the Department for Image 
Science in panel discussion format. Panel 
proposals should include names of prospective 
panelists and topics, which should address the 
general themes of the symposium.

The DEPARTMENT FOR IMAGE SCIENCE is situated near 
Vienna in the UNESCO World Heritage Wachau, in 
the Goettweig Monastery. The DIS is housed in 
part of the fourteenth century castle. It is the 
platform for the international projects: Database 
of Virtual Art, Goettweig Database of the Graphic 
Print Collection, MediaArtHistory.org


ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS OF THE DEPARTMENT
FOR IMAGE SCIENCE (DIS) AND ITS PROJECTS

* DIS * VirtualArt.at * MediaArtHistory.org *

Carl, AIGNER (St. Pölten), Roy ASCOTT (Plymouth), 
Sean CUBITT (Melbourne), Brigitte FELDERER 
(Wien), Felice FRANKEL (Boston), Beryl GRAHAM 
(Newcastle), Erkki HUHTAMO (Los Angeles), Douglas 
KAHN (Davis/California), Martin KEMP (Oxford), 
Harald KRÄMER (Bern), Machiko KUSAHARA (Tokyo), 
Jorge LAFERLA (Buenos Aires), Timothy LENIOR 
(Duke), Gunalan NADARAJAN (Penn State), 
Christiane PAUL (New York), Götz POCHAT (Graz), 
Martin ROTH (Dresden), Wolf SINGER (Frankfurt), 
Christa SOMMERER (Linz), Paul THOMAS (Western 
Australia), Wolfgang WELSCH (Jena), STEVE WILSON 
(San Francisco)

*  *  *
www.donau-uni.ac.at/dis/bildtage