687
Visualising Uneven Distributions of Power
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC57 Visual Sociology (host committee)
Language: Spanish and English
Session Type: Oral
In a world dominated by visual images the photograph has become almost invisible (Clarke, 1997: 11). In the two decades since this statement the proliferation of visual imagery [still or moving] has arguably reinforced this sentiment.
This session seeks to unpack this observation, by asking, how have artists used lens-based practice to push back against this threat of invisibility, mass saturation, compassion fatigue (Moeller 1999) or ‘un-greivability’ (Butler 2009) in times of global crisis or threats to democracy. Specifically, this session seeks papers that pay particular attention to the strategic deployment of lens-based practices by artists who reframe both emerging or existing crisis in new and engaging ways and equally, how can these approaches be problematised or critiqued.
Asking how we can sociologically analyse visual approaches to crisis, we welcome papers that consider a range of geographies and political contexts. Papers can address issues of representation (Tagg 1988), ethics and 'audiencing' (Fiske 1994), (co)-authorship, dissemination and mediation as well as how can we look, sociologically at crisis through the prism of contemporary artists for pedagogical and political gains.