The Organizing Committee is glad to announce that the Call for Papers for the International Conference “Visuality 2021: Media and Communication” is now open.
In his landmark 1994 work, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, W. J. T. Mitchel claimed that a broadly post-structuralist interest in language and textuality (often referred to as ‘the visual turn’) had given way to a new interest in the notion of visuality. Since language could not offer a full explanation of reality, cultural theorists were united in their increasing emphasis on the power of the visual in art, science and indeed, everyday life where media and communication rank as significant factors and determinants.
Visuality plays an important role in media and communication, and as a complex phenomenon it includes variegated elements and aspects with quite different spatio-temporal dimensions. Accordingly, visuality requires complex analysis that is able to integrate methods and theories of philosophy, sociology, history and the theory of arts, creativity studies, cultural and cross-cultural studies, communication science, psychology, political sciences, educational sciences, and also cross-disciplinary studies.
Such an analytical framework allows us to explore and identify the most appropriate and efficient models, methods, strategies, as well as channels and media of communication that pertain to the ‘visual turn’. A useful (and emphatic) starting point would be the so-called new media, e.g. internet, social networks, digital games etc., as well as the most common forms of communication. These would include: digital communication, intercultural and intercivilizational communication, political communication, communication for social change and inclusion, creative communication, science and technologies communication, communication in urban environment, and so on.
The interconnections between visuality and communication also opens up another challenging field of enquiry, i.e. the investigation of phenomena such as collective intelligence, social networks and co-creation, social technologies, social innovations, media literacy, popular culture, fake news, creative industries, creative and smart city, contemporary educological methodologies, and so on. And if we are to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the abovementioned phenomena, then we must take into account the historical context of communication, media and visuality.
Key questions in visuality
Within these theoretical frameworks and beyond, our conference will attempt to address the following questions in the many and varied contexts of visuality as we understand it today:
- What type of communication is dominant in the creative industries?
- What are the philosophical aspects of communication and media?
- How is visuality, media and education connected? What aspects of visuality are evident in our urban environment(s)?
- What features and characteristics are shared by visuality, media and politics?
- Can visuality contribute to media literacy as well as help to prevent fake news, and if so, in what ways?
- What are the implications of visuality to collective intelligence and social networks?
- What are the historical aspects of media/communication?
- Does visuality eliminate creativity in media or, on the contrary, encourage it?
- What is the impact of technologies on visual art?