[artinfo] Technology and Photography in Transition

[Iosif Kiraly]

Technology and Photography in Transition
 
An international symposium
New Europe College - Institute for Advanced Study www.nec.ro
Bucharest, May 11-12, 2007
 
Convenors: Ioana Pintilie Teleaga and Iosif Kiraly
  
Ever since 1989, after the fall of the Communist 
regime, Romania has been a country in endless 
transition. It joined other countries headed at 
various speeds towards a democratic system, while 
recognized democratic systems were undergoing 
changes with respect to what they had been before 
1989, or even before September 2001. One of the 
areas where change is increasingly more 
perceptible is that of the right to privacy. On 
the one hand, the inhabitants of democratic 
countries get more and more used to the idea that 
their daily lives (what they eat, where they go, 
how much they spend, what they buy, what they 
write, what they read, with whom they speak on 
the phone or communicate on the internet) are 
recorded and closely watched over by the "big 
brother". However, the same people who comply 
most of the time with such intrusions in their 
lives tend to find it extremely upsetting when 
they themselves, their houses, or their cars come 
under the scrutiny of a free-lance photographer.
 
The ease with which images are being recorded, 
transformed and distributed gave rise to an 
attitude towards photography wavering between a 
lack of trust in the capacity of this medium to 
document reality objectively and the fear of 
being caught in an image whose trajectory and 
destination can no longer be controlled or 
anticipated; a fear akin to that of the 
"primitives", afraid that images might steal 
their souls.
 
If we adopt a different perspective, that of the 
image makers, we encounter again, at another 
level, an ambivalent attitude: on the one hand 
there is a plethora of discourses suggesting a 
significant attenuation in the importance 
attributed to the concept of author, and to such 
notions as "originality", in favor of "collective 
wok", of "quotation", etc.; on the other, at a 
financial and legal level, there is an increasing 
tendency to invoke "author rights", or 
"intellectual rights", with all the consequences 
they entail.
 
Program:
 
Friday, 11 May
 
Morning session: 9:30 - 13:30
 
9:30 Opening of the symposium
Introductory remarks by the convenors, Ileana Pintilie and Iosif Kiraly
 
10:00 Daniela GOELLER: Before and After 
Photography - on the Relation of Art and 
Techniques
 
10:30 Rolf SACHSSE: The Future of Memory - Images 
and Their Storage in Mind and Society
 
11:00 Discussions
 
11:30 - 12:00 Coffee break
 
12:00 Jean-François CHEVRIER: Photography Between 
Art And Document: Photography as Document of 
Experience
 
12:30 Anca MIHULET¸: The Emotionsl Visuality of Digital Rococo
 
13:00 Discussions
 
13:30 Lunch break
 
Afternoon session: 15:00 - 17:30
 
15:00 Panel discussion: Photography in 
Contemporary Art: Trends in Romania After 1989
Participants: Irina CIOS, Aurora KIRÁLY, Iosif 
KIRÁLY, Anca MIHULET¸, Cosmin MOLDOVAN, Raluca 
NESTOR, Oana TA˜NASE, Roxana TRESTIOREANU
 
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break
 
16:30 Cosmin MOLDOVAN and Raluca NESTOR: The 
OFFSET 2007 Project 
(offset.underconstruct.com/index/offset1.pdf): On 
Young Artists in Romania Working with Photography 
and New Media
 
17:00 Discussions

Saturday, 12 May
 
Morning session: 10:00 - 13:30
 
10:00 Barnabás BENCSIK: Equivocal Images - 
Affection for the Analogue in the Age of the 
Digital. The Use of Analogue Image Processing 
System in the Current Hungarian Photography - 
Presentation of Some Artistic Positions
 
10:30 Iosif KIRÁLY: Tinseltown - An Excerpt from the Romanian Transition
 
11:00 Discussions
 
11:30 - 12:00 Coffee break
 
12:00 Ileana PINTILIE-TELEAGA˜: Photography as a 
Document of Individual and Collective Memory: On 
the Works of Ion Grigorescu, Mircea Cantor, 
Christian Paraschiv, Iosif Kiraly
 
12:30 Magda RADU: Art and Politics: Considering 
Some of Ion Grigorescu's Films and Photographs
 
13:00 Discussions
 
13:30 -15:30 Lunch break
 
Afternoon session: 15:30 - 17:00
 
15:30 Matei BEJENARU: Documenting Poetic 
Situations: Artists son Show at the Periferic 
Biennial, Iasi
 
16:00 Hubertus von AMELUNXEN: After Photography Is Before
 
16:30 Discussions
 
 
Iosif Kiraly
Str. Biserica Amzei 7-9
RO-010391 Bucuresti
Romania
www.iokira.com