homospectans

В конце мая Ереванский центр международных исследований делает свою большую ежегодную международную конференцию, тема этого года — Империи. У нас с Фридрихом Тетьеном там будет секция про империи и их репродуцируемые образы, которая называется Empires in the Age of Their Mechanical Reproducibility. Будем рады вашим заявкам — совсем не обязательно о фотографиях, можно и о монетах, школьных учебниках, телевидении марках и т.д.: Empires need images to generate their stories of origin, to present themselves as united and homogeneous and to paper over any cracks and inconsistencies that make them appear as heterogeneous and full of contradictions. For these images repetitive iconographies are often used, sometimes borrowed from preceding empires: idealized portraits, heroic animals such as lions and eagles or heraldic symbols. And the images are often mass produced - think for instance of coins, which Walter Benjamin cites among the earliest forms of mechanical reproduction. And to stay with the coins, these images are often used with media that are essential for everyday life of virtually all the population; after the coins, later media were the illustrated press and postage stamps, portrait photography, posters, ID’s, schoolbooks, newspapers, radio, and TV, all becoming apparatuses for producing a unified imperial image that stages cohesion. At the same time however, these mass produced images are among the empires' vulnerabilities. Because they are everywhere, and everyone knows them, accidents, unauthorized applications and outright satire can have much impact, rendering the intended message into its opposite. This panel invites papers on the visual technologies through which empires (im)materialize and stabilize – or are destabilized. What role do the varying and changing means of distributing, displaying or otherwise using these images play within the infrastructure of empires? Which iconographies are common to empires and how do they persist across changes of medium and period? Through which media and objects, and under what state privileges, do such images circulate? How does mechanical, and later industrial, reproduction change the scale, speed, or authority of imperial imagery? What happens when this apparatus is inherited, repurposed, or resisted? How can the images and media be productively misused and undermine an empire with its own visual means, and how is this misuse persecuted? We welcome papers from visual and material culture studies, photography and media studies, and the history of technology, addressing any imperial formation or period. Анонс этой и других секций и форма подачи заявок — на сайте конференции. Срок подачи заявок — 23 ноября. Конференция состоится 21-23 мая 2027.