[spectre] Technology and Photography in Transition (Modified by Geert Lovink)

[Iosif Kiraly]

Technology and Photography in Transition
 
An international symposium
New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study www.nec.ro
Bucharest, May 11-12, 2007
 
Convenors: Ioana Pintilie Teleaga and Iosif Kiraly
  
Ever since 1989, after the fall of the Communist regime, Romania has 
been a country in endless transition. It joined other countries headed 
at various speeds towards a democratic system, while recognized 
democratic systems were undergoing changes with respect to what they 
had been before 1989, or even before September 2001. One of the areas 
where change is increasingly more perceptible is that of the right to 
privacy. On the one hand, the inhabitants of democratic countries get 
more and more used to the idea that their daily lives (what they eat, 
where they go, how much they spend, what they buy, what they write, 
what they read, with whom they speak on the phone or communicate on the 
internet) are recorded and closely watched over by the “big brother”. 
However, the same people who comply most of the time with such 
intrusions in their lives tend to find it extremely upsetting when they 
themselves, their houses, or their cars come under the scrutiny of a 
free-lance photographer.
 
The ease with which images are being recorded, transformed and 
distributed gave rise to an attitude towards photography wavering 
between a lack of trust in the capacity of this medium to document 
reality objectively and the fear of being caught in an image whose 
trajectory and destination can no longer be controlled or anticipated; 
a fear akin to that of the “primitives”, afraid that images might steal 
their souls.
 
If we adopt a different perspective, that of the image makers, we 
encounter again, at another level, an ambivalent attitude: on the one 
hand there is a plethora of discourses suggesting a significant 
attenuation in the importance attributed to the concept of author, and 
to such notions as “originality”, in favor of “collective wok”, of 
“quotation”, etc.; on the other, at a financial and legal level, there 
is an increasing tendency to invoke “author rights”, or “intellectual 
rights”, with all the consequences they entail.
 
Program:
 
Friday, 11 May
 
Morning session: 9:30 – 13:30
 
9:30 Opening of the symposium
Introductory remarks by the convenors, Ileana Pintilie and Iosif Kiraly
 
10:00 Daniela GOELLER: Before and After Photography - on the Relation 
of Art and Techniques
 
10:30 Rolf SACHSSE: The Future of Memory - Images and Their Storage in 
Mind and Society
 
11:00 Discussions
 
11:30 – 12:00 Coffee break
 
12:00 Jean-François CHEVRIER: Photography Between Art And Document: 
Photography as Document of Experience
 
12:30 Anca MIHULEŢ: The Emotionsl Visuality of Digital Rococo
 
13:00 Discussions
 
13:30 Lunch break
 
Afternoon session: 15:00 – 17:30
 
15:00 Panel discussion: Photography in Contemporary Art: Trends in 
Romania After 1989
Participants: Irina CIOS, Aurora KIRÁLY, Iosif KIRÁLY, Anca MIHULEŢ, 
Cosmin MOLDOVAN, Raluca NESTOR, Oana TĂNASE, Roxana TRESTIOREANU
 
16:00 – 16:30 Coffee break
 
16:30 Cosmin MOLDOVAN and Raluca NESTOR: The OFFSET 2007 Project 
(offset.underconstruct.com/index/offset1.pdf): On Young Artists in 
Romania Working with Photography and New Media
 
17:00 Discussions

Saturday, 12 May
 
Morning session: 10:00 – 13:30
 
10:00 Barnabás BENCSIK: Equivocal Images – Affection for the Analogue 
in the Age of the Digital. The Use of Analogue Image Processing System 
in the Current Hungarian Photography – Presentation of Some Artistic 
Positions
 
10:30 Iosif KIRÁLY: Tinseltown – An Excerpt from the Romanian Transition
 
11:00 Discussions
 
11:30 – 12:00 Coffee break
 
12:00 Ileana PINTILIE-TELEAGĂ: Photography as a Document of Individual 
and Collective Memory: On the Works of Ion Grigorescu, Mircea Cantor, 
Christian Paraschiv, Iosif Kiraly
 
12:30 Magda RADU: Art and Politics: Considering Some of Ion 
Grigorescu’s Films and Photographs
 
13:00 Discussions
 
13:30 –15:30 Lunch break
 
Afternoon session: 15:30 – 17:00
 
15:30 Matei BEJENARU: Documenting Poetic Situations: Artists son Show 
at the Periferic Biennial, Iasi
 
16:00 Hubertus von AMELUNXEN: After Photography Is Before
 
16:30 Discussions
 
 
Iosif Kiraly
Str. Biserica Amzei 7-9
RO-010391 Bucuresti
Romania
www.iokira.com