[spectre] (fwd) CFP: View, issue 12: Capitalist Realism

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Magda Szczesniak <szczesniak.magda at gmail.com>
Date: Sep 27, 2015
Subject: CFP: View, issue 12: Capitalist Realism

Deadline: Jan 15, 2016
<http://widok.ibl.waw.pl/index.php/one/about/submissions>

"View. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture", issue 12:

Capitalist Realism: Transformations of Eastern European Visual Culture 
in the 1980's and 1990's

Managing editor: Magda Szczesniak

In May 1989, Polish poet and writer Agnieszka Osiecka wrote a scathing 
satirical article about the new social class that had emerged as a 
result of the introduction of the free market in Poland. In her piece, 
Osiecka derisively dubbed this developing class “wydeo,” a play on 
“wideo,”—the polonized version of the English word “video”—where Osiecka 
purposely replaced the “i” with a “y” meant to mark the group’splebeian 
character, as well as its lack of knowledge about the western culture it 
tended to embrace. Contrary to the intelligentsia, whose ethos was 
expressed through language and literature, wydeo was “a colorful and 
ubiquitous pack, […] made up of the first owners—and compulsive 
consumers—of VCRs,” Osiecka wrote. The new class, consisting mainly of 
small business owners, was ironically described by Osiecka as a group of 
people whose lives revolved around images. Members of wydeo consumed 
visual representations, carefully studied and imitated Western popular 
images, and—being a “colorful pack”—were a picturesque sight themselves. 
In Osiecka's opinion, the low quality of the images the group 
consumed—“the head of the family is watching a spy movie, his wife—an 
Australian melodrama, the offspring—Rambo”—didn’t bode well for their 
future group identity.

Osiecka's classist and iconoclastic account was published a couple of 
weeks before the first partially free elections in Poland. However, 
images like the ones described by the poet had been circulating since 
the mid 1980s at least. VCRs, satellite dishes, VHS tapes with Western 
films and TV shows, and illustrated magazines had found their way into 
Eastern European households thanks to the relaxation of custom and 
border laws, which allowed for both people and images to travel. Both in 
the 1980s and 1990s, images and visual media were not merely symptoms of 
change, but active agents in and of themselves. In the context of 
Eastern Europe, these visual agents of change can be defined as 
“capitalist realism,” a predominantly visual style visible in vernacular 
and artistic representations, mainstream media, popular culture, and 
public spaces, and one which shapes, projects, naturalizes and justifies 
neoliberal practices and values wherever such images circulate.

In the twelfth issue of "View," we'd like to invite contributions 
devoted to the images and narratives of “capitalist realism.” What were 
the mechanisms of their functioning, their circulation and assimilation 
in Eastern Europe before and after 1989? What were the differences 
between local and global “caprealist” images? What were the differences 
in the transformation of visual culture across the Eastern bloc? How 
were images employed to produce economic value? What kind of values and 
models of subjectivity were promoted and what were the mechanisms of 
representing and producing an ideal neoliberal subject through visual 
means? What tactics were employed by artists and other subjects in order 
to oppose the commodification of visual culture? Is it possible to 
reconstruct a history of countervisual practices in the transitioning 
Eastern bloc?

Deadline for submitted articles: January 15th, 2016.

We invite you to consult the topic of your article with the editor of 
the issue (redakcja at widok.ibl.waw.pl).

For editorial and technical requirements, go to: 
http://widok.ibl.waw.pl/index.php/one/about/submissions.

Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: View, issue 12: Capitalist Realism. In: H-ArtHist, Sep 27, 2015. 
<http://arthist.net/archive/11079>.