University of Copenhagen, November 10 - 11, 2016
Deadline: Apr 8, 2016

International conference

DEAD OR ALIVE! Tracing the Animation of Matter in Art and Visual Culture

The conference will take place at The University of Copenhagen, SMK:
The National Gallery of Denmark, and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art,
Humlebæk.

For a full version of the call for papers please visit the website:
deadoraliveconference.ku.dk

The image is an ontological paradox; it is made of dead matter, yet
simultaneously appears to be alive. For millennia, artists have created
images of the living world – images that are static and yet possess the
power to bring to life a frozen moment in time. For as long as theories
on the nature of images have existed, this duality has constituted a
fundamental challenge. However, recent scholarship has rekindled
interest into the question of what images do to us.

What an image is and does cannot be separated from the question what it
is made of. Thus, the conference focuses on how different artistic
media animate their motifs.

With the investigation of images' inherent paradox of stillness and
animation, the conference aims to inspire a broad scope discussion
reaching across various research areas. We invite papers that focus on

specific artworks or phenomena within visual culture, with attention to
the relation between image, medium, and animation, preferably informed
by recent theories and thoughts within visual culture studies,
Bildwissenschaft, phenomenology and other fields of image theory.

Presentations may explore questions of the life and death of the image
in painting, photography, sculpture, film, objects, technology, events,
performance, etc., analyzing both canonical and obscure works from in-
and outside the art world, and within or across any historical periods
and cultural perspectives.

Please send abstracts of 250 words for papers of 20 mins to
deadoralive@hum.ku.dk by April 8, 2016.