[image here] Conference and Exhibition

[image here]: Interdisciplinary Conference & Exhibition

Conference

April 7-10, 2016
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Presented by Film and Visual Studies, Harvard University
imagehe.re

This conference will bring together papers, performances and artworks in order to elaborate the role of non-representation as a theory and/or practice in recent contemporary philosophy, media theory, art, and related fields. Not simply a blank, the phrase [image here] functions as a placeholder—a formatted but unpopulated space. A page under construction, a refusal to show or be shown, an empty frame. Marking what is indicated but not given, [image here] simultaneously exposes and withdraws from the logic of representation. Drawing out these questions of negation, withdrawal, and resistance to representation, the conference will cover topics ranging from sonic, affective and atmospheric experience to digital and machinic logics, to eco-media and post-minimalist art.

Keynote Lecture: Sven Lütticken, University of Amsterdam

Friday, April 8, 5:30 pm
Carpenter Center B-04

“Nuclear Art”

This talk will examine artistic and activist responses to the nuclear regime from Hiroshima to Fukushima. A number of different genealogical strands will be analyzed, with an overall focus on the problematization of the visual by the advent of nuclear physics and nuclear power. As one author put it, radiation is terribly 'discrete.' How have artists engaged with the aesthetic and political problem of this lacking sensuous presence?

Special performances by:

Trisha Donnelly
Eli Keszler
Sandrine Schaefer 
Hito Steyerl (video performance)

Accompanying Exhibition

April 6-17, 2016
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts Lobby
carpenter.center/image-here

Drawing together works that confront logics of representation, the exhibition [image here] will stage commissioned sound installation and performance pieces alongside archival material, video essays, experimental documentation, and mobile architecture. These works will be provided in collaboration with Eli Keszler, James Hoff, Oliver Laric, Hito Steyerl, metaLAB, Harvard Art Museums, Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, Woodberry Poetry Room, and Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.

Exhibition provided with support from Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, the Lasky-Barajas Dean's Innovation Fund for Digital Arts and Humanities, and the Provostial Fund for the Arts and Humanities.