[spectre] Journal of Visual Culture - Call for Papers - Visions of Contemporary Cuts

[Lanfranco Aceti]

VISIONS OF CONTEMPORARY CUTS

Journal of Visual Culture, in collaboration with the International
Association for Visual Culture, Operational and Curatorial Research,
the Museum of Contemporary Cuts and Kasa Gallery, is pleased to
announce a new refereed issue titled Visions of Contemporary Cuts.

The issue is guest edited by Lanfranco Aceti, Sabanci University,
Istanbul; and Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Visions of Contemporary Cuts is a special call for a refereed issue
open to international scholars, curators, artists and thinkers who are
provocatively discussing and analyzing the contemporary economic
crisis as well as the meaning of the word ‘cuts’ and how these affect
contemporary society.

     Visions of Contemporary Cuts – Theme

What are the contemporary narratives of the Great Recession
(2008-Present) that are defining the politics of economic cuts to the
arts, education and social services?

Historically, the narratives and stories of the Great Depression were
mainly narrated through institutional forms of representation and
visual imagery that presented a portrait of the dispossessed –
Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and Lewis Hine, to note a few of the most
well known photographers. Their work of documentation was paid for by
the American government, perhaps raising concerns related to an
institutionalized form of narrative instrumental to the political
realities of the time. The most poignant portrait of the time, Migrant
Mother by Lange, is surrounded by a certain controversy: “Florence
Owen Thompson revealed her identity in a letter to a local newspaper,
the Modesto Bee, stating her dismay about the iconic photograph. She
felt exploited by it, never received a penny, and seemed hurt that the
photographer never asked her name.” [Michael Stone, ‘The Other Migrant
Mother,’ The Open Photography Forum,
http://www.openphotographyforums.com/index.php (accessed February 2,
2013).]

What then are the images of today that represent the contemporary
economic crisis and symbolize the financial cuts that are being
enforced across the arts, education and public health systems? What
are the realities of these cuts in the context of societies in crisis
such as the United States and Western Europe? Are the politics of
rigor and cuts – with their institutionalized discourse – hiding other
realities? And finally, what is the impact of the images and
contextualized discourses that we as academics, practitioners,
curators, and cultural commentators are constructing?

This themed issue of Journal of Visual Culture seeks papers that
address, although are not limited to, the following themes:

1 Cuts and their visual mythology in contemporary discourses
2 Cuts, protest and resistance
3 Narratives of cuts
4 Lives cut: suicides in the economic crisis
5 The visual politics of cutting
6 Cuts and social justice
7 Dreams cut: the failing of upward social mobility
8 Creative finance and art cuts
9 Comparative analyses between historical images of poverty and
contemporary poverty
10 The role of media technology in distributing imageries and in
creating narrative of cuts
11 How to curate the visuality of cuts and its social impact
12 Artistic practices in a time of crisis
13 Other related topics


Submission Deadline: January 5, 2014: submission of first article
draft of 1500 words.

For further information:
http://www.lanfrancoaceti.com/2013/09/visions-of-contemporary-cuts/