Transparency and opacity are terms broadly used and interpreted as antonyms. They draw on the qualities of the human visual field, evoke the canonical sense of sight and challenge the idea that we are surrounded by an external reality that can be scrutinized and understood. The 2016 ASCA workshop aspires to explore the notions of transparency and opacity, as well as their nuances (which are not only a matter of visual apprehension) by questioning, redefining and rethinking them in order to create new constellations of meanings. To traverse the grey areas between the transparent and the opaque, we introduce three clusters of discussion: transparency / (in)visibility, opacity / camouflage / mimicry and obscurity / darkness.
The proposed clusters can accommodate (but are not restricted to) issues such as:
* Transparency/opacity and politics: as demanded by art projects, social movements, activists, etc., forms of resistance, information, democracy.
* Transparency/opacity and modernity: coloniality as the shadow and dark side of modernity, forms of domination and enlightenment.
* Transparency/opacity and visual studies: practices of filming, photographing, perception, visual production.
* Transparency/opacity and knowledge: black boxing, critical theory, unconscious, education, university, and naturalized categories.
* Transparency/opacity and language: interpretation, translation, discourses, obscure/translucent language.
* Transparency/opacity and technologies: data collection, wikileaks, flow of information.
We encourage PhD and MA students, scholars from different disciplines, artists and activists to participate. The workshop will be oriented towards a collective and collaborative reflection upon the topics explored.
SUBMISSIONS You are asked to submit an abstract (max. 300 words) with a short biographical note (max. 150 words) to Dr. Eloe Kingma (Managing Director at ASCA), asca-fgw@uva.nl. The deadline for submission is October 26, 2015. Please indicate which cluster(s) you would like to see your presentation placed in. If selected, you will be asked to provide a short paper (3000 words, excluding bibliography) by January 30th, 2016. The papers will be distributed before the workshop, to prepare the discussion and collective reflection during the panels. During the sessions, participants are given 15 minutes time to present their work and the main links to the conference theme and other papers within the cluster. Artistic and other creative submissions are also welcome, and should also be submitted in the form of a proposal (max. 300 words) with a short biographical note (max. 150 words).
