07: Visual Culture: Images of Power and Power of Image
In modern societies, seeing and knowing are thought to be coherent: ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’. But who decides what we see? What are the criteria to decide what is shown? And how does this relate to truth? Images, photos and other artistic interventions are not solely representations of ‘the real,’ but are often deliberately commercialized for various purposes or used as an instrument. The seminar will explore possibilities of intentionally producing images and of utilizing them with specific goals, as well as the impact of different images, media systems, and techniques of representation in shaping the broader public sphere. Historical experiences will be examined alongside the extraordinary current flood of images our society is producing. The seminars will be interactive. Participants will be asked to indicate their interests in the theme. Visual materials will be provided for discussion.
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Noit BANAI
Professor for Contemporary Art, Department of Art History, University of Vienna
| Noit Banai is Professor of Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History at the University of Vienna. She received her PhD in Art History at Columbia University and taught Modern and Contemporary Art at Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Her research interests focus on modern and contemporary practices in a global context, especially the critical ‘potentialities’ and historical ‘blind spots’ of aesthetic propositions that challenge traditional disciplinary boundaries and geographical limitations. Banai has published in journals such as Third Text, RES, Public Culture and Performance Art Journal; contributed essay to catalogues for the Museum der Moderne Kunst – Ludwig Stiftung in Vienna, Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Centre Georges Pompidou and Musée d'art Moderne in Paris, Barbican Art Gallery in London, and Documenta in Kassel. She served as Assistant Editor of the journal RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics and is a regular contributor to Artforum International. Her book on Yves Klein was published by Reaktion Books (2015) and she is currently writing a book titled "Who are the People? Between Nation State and Border State, From Universality to the Global Subject". |
Larry RAY
Professor of Sociology, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury
| Larry Ray is Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, UK. His research and publications have extended across social theory, globalization, post-communism, ethnonational conflict, sociology of memory, Jewish Studies, the sociology of violence, and photography. He is the author of twelve authored and edited books, including Theorizing Classical Sociology (Open University Press, 1999), Social Theory and Postcommunism (with William Outhwaite, Blackwell, 2005), Globalization and Everyday Life (Routledge, 2007), Violence and Society (Sage, 2011, with a revised second edition, 2018), Violence and Society - Towards a New Sociology (with Jane Kilby, Sociological Review Monograph Series), and Boundaries, Identity and Belonging in Modern Judaism (with Maria Diemling, Routledge, 2016). He has also recently published on Karl Marx’s bicentenary, and the politics of disputed Holocaust memory in Poland. He is currently working on photography, violence and the public sphere. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. |
