Replacing the Soul in Adolfo Bioy Casares’ ‘The Invention of Morel’ with the Bodies of digital placeholders in Ed Atkins’ ‘Safe Conduct’

Magno, S. (Speaker)
Ilios Willemars (Speaker)

Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC)

Activity: Talk or presentation › Oral presentation

Description

JOld Media:
Joint PhD-Seminar, Copenhagen Doctoral School in Cultural Studies and
Text, Image, Sound, Space, Norwegian Researcher School in the Humanities
in New York

Period	18 May 2017 → 20 May 2017
Held at	Copenhagen Doctoral School in Cultural Studies and Text, Image, Sound, Space, Norwegian Researcher School in the Humanities

Documents & Links

In his essay on the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, Walter Benjamin noted how the advent of photography radically changed the approach to painting, modifying not only its role in the art system but also in the perception of the audience. The advances in photographic technology created new aesthetic sensibilities thus making it, in the words of Robert Musil, “somehow ridiculous for a person to prize a well-painted lobster” thereby questioning human appetites, our relation to the world and others. Painting not only became tangible in new and different ways, the old art form retroactively presented itself as a medium. Technological advances not only prompt the mutation of old media, imbuing them with new qualities and giving rise to novel potentials. Whether in the form of books or clavichords, LPs or CAD-programs, Polaroid photos or paper money, new technologies transform the entire set up and interaction of the media ecologies in which we live, think and act. In the wake of the momentous media development created by information technology throughout the latest decennia, there has been a considerable upsurge in academic studies of new media, media history, and media archaeology, focusing in particular on the nexus between media and their technological affordances and social environments. With this seminar, we would like to highlight a specific dimension of media development, namely that which has most recently disappeared, what Walter Benjamin called das Jüngstvergangene. Or, quite simply, “old media”. The seminar will focus on three questions concerning our understanding of “old media”. - Firstly, we are interested in the ways in which we theorize and analyse old media in the light of recent media research. How does our understanding of new(er) media affect how we look at books, theatre productions, paintings, or celluloid films? What happens when art forms are redefined as artistic media? - Secondly, we hope to question how the artistic use of old media is reflected, reiterated and reinvented for new media ecologies. Typewriters and super 8, gouache and tape recorders, Commodore 64s and copper casting, are among the many otherwise obsolete technologies resuscitated in contemporary artistic practices. - Thirdly, we invite the participants to examine and discuss the aesthetic, philosophical and political consequences of the reformatting of old media by new media with regard to the construction of everyday life worlds. Doctoral students from all areas of art and literature studies are invited to present their work and discuss methodological and theoretical issues related to it. This might take the form of a discussion of a text drawn from the reading list, an analysis of a specific work of art, or a general presentation of themes, issues or problems drawn from their own work that might be of general relevance to the topic. And, as always, the course is also open for those who would prefer to present and discuss a draft of a chapter from their ongoing work.