Precarious Aesthetics Conference
Updates
Read the Revisited post of this conference.
Watch the video of Panel Ten (featuring Kristen Whissel (UC Berkeley), Andrew Utterson (Ithaca College), Jordan Schonig (University of Chicago).
Watch the video of Panel Twelve (Featuring Ulrik Ekman (University of Copenhagen), David Rokeby (Ryerson University, Toronto), and Mark B. Hansen (Duke University)).
Original Post
Is it … always an advantage to replace an indistinct picture by a sharp one? Isn't the indistinct one often exactly what we need? (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §71)
Technological advances strive for greater clarity and resolution, but visuals that counteract such perfection with blur, noise, and non-transparent filters are ever more popular. They invite us to see the world, but through a lens that obstructs our vision to dazzling effect. Operating at the mercy of bodies and technologies that are unstable and liable to fail, this mediation is ever-more precarious. Join us as we interrogate the historical, theoretical, and philosophical implications of precarious aesthetics.
Keynote speakers include: Tom Gunning, University of Chicago; Christine Ross, McGill University; Abigail De Kosnik, UC Berkeley; Jeffrey Skoller, UC Berkeley; Jacob Gaboury, Stony Brook University; W. J. T. Mitchell, University of Chicago
For more information and to register for this incredible program, visit: http://precariousaesthetics.org
You can see the original call for papers here.
The conference is hosted by the Berkeley Center for New Media in collaboration with the Department of Film & Media at UC Berkeley and the research project The Power of the Precarious Aesthetic at The Department of Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen.