::fibreculture:: Cfp: POSTMACHINE VISION, panel @ AAANZ 2015 Brisbane (24-25 Nov), deadline 28 August

[Dr. HOELZL Ingrid]

Call for papers:

POSTMACHINE VISION, panel @ AAANZ 2015 Brisbane (24-25 Nov), deadline 28 August 2015
Panel convenor: Dr Ingrid Hoelzl, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong

IMAGE | SPACE | BODY 2015 Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference
http://aaanz.info/aaanz-home/conferences/2015-conference/image-space-body-2015-call-for-papers/

The conference is hosted by The Brisbane Consortium for Visual Arts, a collaboration between art history/theory departments at The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and Queensland College of Art, Griffith University and QAGOMA.

It will take place at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). The event coincides with the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT 8) held at the same venues: https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/apt8

POSTMACHINE VISION

Today we are entering an era in which the question of the posthuman resonates with the
question of the postmachine. This is because the very notion of the machine presupposes
human presence. But now we might also have to consider the disappearance of the image,
which is what this panel seeks to consider.
Why? Consider drones for example. While the debate on how drones should be regulated
has gone viral, little attention is paid to the fact that these flying robots are also flying
cameras. The image supposes a viewer and, if there is none, then only data is being
exchanged. Drones are likely to become one of the major imaging technologies of the
21st Century, but with the consequence of transforming the image into a plethora of
algorithms, sensors and actuators. We can legitimately pose the question of the
disappearance of the image, all the more so since technically speaking, what we are
dealing with are visual data/visuals. The current development of this new machine of
vision will render human control obsolescent. Drones will be capable of intelligence, of
communicating with each other and of making decisions without us.
But this question cannot be addressed only on the technical level, because, as Virilio
(1994) put it, ‛if we remove the image, not only Christ but the whole universe
disappears’. The disappearance of the image in the age of the drone is also a
philosophical and ethical debate, and if we are to open up this debate, we cannot forget
that machines of vision - from the first optical devices to autonomous drones - are, before
all, philosophical machines: systems of apprehending and acting upon/within the world,
even if that world is (imagined to be) a posthuman world.

The panel Postmachine Vision will explore the question of the image in the 21st century
in the broadest sense, and it calls for participation from numerous intersecting fields such
as art history, media history and theory, philosophy, visual studies, etc.

Please send your proposals (max. 400 words abstract and a short bio) by 28 August to:
ingrid.hoelzl at cityu.edu.hk

Timeline:
Submission of abstracts: 28 August
Notification of acceptance: 11 September
Return of speaker agreement form: 18 September


Dr. Ingrid Hoelzl
Assistant Professor
School of Creative Media
City University of Hong Kong

Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre
Room M7073, tel. (852) 3442 2605
http://cityu-hk.academia.edu/IngridHoelzl


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