Conference Calls Archive
"Cultures of Surveillance": An Interdisciplinary Conference
Sponsored by The Film Studies Space: The Centre for the Cultural History of the Moving Image.
UCL (University College London), 29 September - 1 October 2011.
Opening lecture by Professor Tom Gunning, The University of Chicago.
We are being watched. The amazing part is that we are no longer even surprised by this. The culture of surveillance increasingly surrounds us in Europe where omnipresent CCTV cameras remind us that nothing escapes the invisible gaze of those behind the lens. At UCL, we have long been surveyed by our founder, Jeremy Bentham, who sits in a wooden case in the lobby and peers from glass eyes and a wax head: his own ‘icon’ body signals that he not only knew what surveillance meant but named it through his invention of the Panopticon. That imaginary device, which Bentham proposed would “help reform morals, preserve health, invigorate industry, diffuse instruction, and lighten public burdens,” continues to be a resonant touchstone for questions about the way governments and private agencies keep watch over our interests – and theirs. This conference, held where Bentham goes on watching both literally and metaphorically, proposes to explore, broadly, the interdisciplinary frameworks for understanding modern surveillance and, particularly, how surveillance practices intersect with visual technologies and histories of culture.
Our conference project emerges from an eagerness to think in new ways about surveillance practices as they intersect with culture, visual culture, and moving image studies. We start from the vantage point that there are many frameworks through which surveillance might be imagined today, ranging from the kinds of surveillance that entail keeping a friendly watch over each other to those represented by policing practices, government monitoring, and undercover investigations. Our call for papers likewise assumes that questions about surveillance have become central to today’s world, as states and cultures grapple with the complex dynamics of security and liberty and as corporations demand ever more precise data about the world’s populations. As a modern panoptical city, London stands at the centre of the shift away from a Cold War culture of surveillance toward the post-9/11 order of things. It has long been one of the centres for the development and deployment of surveillance practices ranging from census taking to identification methods (such as fingerprinting, photography, passports, and DNA typing). It has also served over the past two centuries as a crucial nexus for practices of culture that perpetuate – and often question – the work of both social surveillance and self-surveillance: for example, the novel, detective fiction, museums, and the BBC. Visual recording and representations have historically played a central role in surveillance practices throughout the industrialising world: printmaking, photography, the cinema, and televisual moving images have accompanied the rise of the modern police force and the development of security systems in public as well as private spaces. “Cultures of Surveillance” hopes to address these intertwined histories of surveillance, practices of governance, visual technologies, and cultural forms.
This conference is sponsored by UCL’s Film Studies Space, an interdisciplinary centre for the study of the cultural history of moving images. It derives from two ongoing research projects, The Work of Film, investigating the ways moving images have been utilised by states and corporations to guide the conduct of populations; and The Autopsies Project, examining the afterlife of material objects in relation to the history of consumer culture and cinematic memory. We hope that conference presenters will discuss a range of issues in the long history of surveillance practices, from photography to digital media. We anticipate contributions that analyse the myriad ways that visual culture has been enmeshed with political rationalities. We are keen to expand our frameworks far beyond the sphere of London and to look outside the Panopticon. We especially hope that contributions will find new ways of asking what it means to watch and to be watched, and to police and to be policed. We look forward to discussing ways that scholars of the humanities can interrogate the networks of surveillance that both protect and transform our world.
Following an opening lecture by Professor Tom Gunning, The University of Chicago, on Thursday, 29 Sept. 2011, the Conference will take place on Friday and Saturday, 30 Sept. and 1 Oct. 2011.
Topics might include but are not limited to:
* Histories of surveillance technologies and their applications
* The geo-politics of surveillance (in the 19th century? in Cold War culture? After 9/11?)
* Architectures of surveillance – visibility and urban space
* Film and television representations of surveillance / Film and the construction of public space
* Photography and the police
* Constructions of identity and surveillance methods (fingerprinting, passports, census taking)
* The hidden objects of surveillance (cameras, tape recorders, transmitters, interceptors, tracking systems)
* Histories and representations of objects associated with the collection, storage, and retrieval of personal data: from filing cabinets, paper shredders, computers .... (etc.)
* The Obsolete Objects of Surveillance (i.e., objects of surveillance that have fallen out of use)
* How do objects make visible personal data that is otherwise invisible?
* Self-policing: how do we watch them watch us?
* Technologies of the self and new media / Technologies of the self and dead media
* Systems of meaning and truth under surveillance/ imaginary and real inventions for policing and detecting such as lie detectors, truth serums, mind reading
* War-time surveillance: rationing and ration books, black market trading (representations and history)
* Governmental efforts to educate citizens (e.g. road safety campaigns, anti-littering campaigns, anti- smoking campaigns, etc.), both in filmic representation or through tv and press media.
* The gadgets of surveillance in spy films
* The art of CCTV cameras / Cultural plays with CCTV
* Watching cultures and Reality TV
* The relationship of bodies to surveillance technologies
* The arts of documentary photography
* Prison plans and texts
* Watching you watching me: photography OF the police
* Under-cover policing in Film Noir / Policing practices in tv crime series
* Police procedurals (novelistic, cinematic, televisual)
* Forensic science and the invention of modern vision
* Panopticism and cinematic surveillance: theories, practices, and representations
* The relationship between voyeurism and surveillance
* New visibilities of surveillance / Changing temporalities and spaces of surveillance
* Documentary (as) surveillance
* Self-registration (tattoos, dog-tags) and rights
* Neighbourhood watch, curtain twitchers, vigilante work: putting the everyday under surveillance
* ‘Take back the night’ and women’s relationship to surveillance
* The political economy of visual technology and surveillance
* Advanced capitalism and (visual) cultures of surveillance
* Surveillance regimes in comparative historical, national, and political contexts
* Watching out for the future: surveillance technologies in science fiction
* ‘They have me under surveillance’: Paranoia and modernity
* Design technologies and panopticism / anti-panopticism
* The aesthetics of surveillance
* What can humanities scholars bring to current debates about surveillance?
* How can film studies contribute to debates about surveillance culture?
Individual papers are invited from scholars and researchers in any discipline of the humanities, arts, social sciences, and sciences. Scholars from postgraduate to permanent senior academics are welcome to submit papers. Presentations would equally be welcomed from artists and filmmakers.
UCL (University College London), 29 September - 1 October 2011.
Opening lecture by Professor Tom Gunning, The University of Chicago.
We are being watched. The amazing part is that we are no longer even surprised by this. The culture of surveillance increasingly surrounds us in Europe where omnipresent CCTV cameras remind us that nothing escapes the invisible gaze of those behind the lens. At UCL, we have long been surveyed by our founder, Jeremy Bentham, who sits in a wooden case in the lobby and peers from glass eyes and a wax head: his own ‘icon’ body signals that he not only knew what surveillance meant but named it through his invention of the Panopticon. That imaginary device, which Bentham proposed would “help reform morals, preserve health, invigorate industry, diffuse instruction, and lighten public burdens,” continues to be a resonant touchstone for questions about the way governments and private agencies keep watch over our interests – and theirs. This conference, held where Bentham goes on watching both literally and metaphorically, proposes to explore, broadly, the interdisciplinary frameworks for understanding modern surveillance and, particularly, how surveillance practices intersect with visual technologies and histories of culture.
Our conference project emerges from an eagerness to think in new ways about surveillance practices as they intersect with culture, visual culture, and moving image studies. We start from the vantage point that there are many frameworks through which surveillance might be imagined today, ranging from the kinds of surveillance that entail keeping a friendly watch over each other to those represented by policing practices, government monitoring, and undercover investigations. Our call for papers likewise assumes that questions about surveillance have become central to today’s world, as states and cultures grapple with the complex dynamics of security and liberty and as corporations demand ever more precise data about the world’s populations. As a modern panoptical city, London stands at the centre of the shift away from a Cold War culture of surveillance toward the post-9/11 order of things. It has long been one of the centres for the development and deployment of surveillance practices ranging from census taking to identification methods (such as fingerprinting, photography, passports, and DNA typing). It has also served over the past two centuries as a crucial nexus for practices of culture that perpetuate – and often question – the work of both social surveillance and self-surveillance: for example, the novel, detective fiction, museums, and the BBC. Visual recording and representations have historically played a central role in surveillance practices throughout the industrialising world: printmaking, photography, the cinema, and televisual moving images have accompanied the rise of the modern police force and the development of security systems in public as well as private spaces. “Cultures of Surveillance” hopes to address these intertwined histories of surveillance, practices of governance, visual technologies, and cultural forms.
This conference is sponsored by UCL’s Film Studies Space, an interdisciplinary centre for the study of the cultural history of moving images. It derives from two ongoing research projects, The Work of Film, investigating the ways moving images have been utilised by states and corporations to guide the conduct of populations; and The Autopsies Project, examining the afterlife of material objects in relation to the history of consumer culture and cinematic memory. We hope that conference presenters will discuss a range of issues in the long history of surveillance practices, from photography to digital media. We anticipate contributions that analyse the myriad ways that visual culture has been enmeshed with political rationalities. We are keen to expand our frameworks far beyond the sphere of London and to look outside the Panopticon. We especially hope that contributions will find new ways of asking what it means to watch and to be watched, and to police and to be policed. We look forward to discussing ways that scholars of the humanities can interrogate the networks of surveillance that both protect and transform our world.
Following an opening lecture by Professor Tom Gunning, The University of Chicago, on Thursday, 29 Sept. 2011, the Conference will take place on Friday and Saturday, 30 Sept. and 1 Oct. 2011.
Topics might include but are not limited to:
* Histories of surveillance technologies and their applications
* The geo-politics of surveillance (in the 19th century? in Cold War culture? After 9/11?)
* Architectures of surveillance – visibility and urban space
* Film and television representations of surveillance / Film and the construction of public space
* Photography and the police
* Constructions of identity and surveillance methods (fingerprinting, passports, census taking)
* The hidden objects of surveillance (cameras, tape recorders, transmitters, interceptors, tracking systems)
* Histories and representations of objects associated with the collection, storage, and retrieval of personal data: from filing cabinets, paper shredders, computers .... (etc.)
* The Obsolete Objects of Surveillance (i.e., objects of surveillance that have fallen out of use)
* How do objects make visible personal data that is otherwise invisible?
* Self-policing: how do we watch them watch us?
* Technologies of the self and new media / Technologies of the self and dead media
* Systems of meaning and truth under surveillance/ imaginary and real inventions for policing and detecting such as lie detectors, truth serums, mind reading
* War-time surveillance: rationing and ration books, black market trading (representations and history)
* Governmental efforts to educate citizens (e.g. road safety campaigns, anti-littering campaigns, anti- smoking campaigns, etc.), both in filmic representation or through tv and press media.
* The gadgets of surveillance in spy films
* The art of CCTV cameras / Cultural plays with CCTV
* Watching cultures and Reality TV
* The relationship of bodies to surveillance technologies
* The arts of documentary photography
* Prison plans and texts
* Watching you watching me: photography OF the police
* Under-cover policing in Film Noir / Policing practices in tv crime series
* Police procedurals (novelistic, cinematic, televisual)
* Forensic science and the invention of modern vision
* Panopticism and cinematic surveillance: theories, practices, and representations
* The relationship between voyeurism and surveillance
* New visibilities of surveillance / Changing temporalities and spaces of surveillance
* Documentary (as) surveillance
* Self-registration (tattoos, dog-tags) and rights
* Neighbourhood watch, curtain twitchers, vigilante work: putting the everyday under surveillance
* ‘Take back the night’ and women’s relationship to surveillance
* The political economy of visual technology and surveillance
* Advanced capitalism and (visual) cultures of surveillance
* Surveillance regimes in comparative historical, national, and political contexts
* Watching out for the future: surveillance technologies in science fiction
* ‘They have me under surveillance’: Paranoia and modernity
* Design technologies and panopticism / anti-panopticism
* The aesthetics of surveillance
* What can humanities scholars bring to current debates about surveillance?
* How can film studies contribute to debates about surveillance culture?
Individual papers are invited from scholars and researchers in any discipline of the humanities, arts, social sciences, and sciences. Scholars from postgraduate to permanent senior academics are welcome to submit papers. Presentations would equally be welcomed from artists and filmmakers.
Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire, 1895-1939 and 1939-1965.
Contributors are invited to two major international conferences on British colonial film, to be held in London in June 2010 and Pittsburgh in September 2010. The proposed conferences will be the final part of a multi-partner research project on British colonial film. The overall project, entitled “Colonial Film: Moving Images of The British Empire,” has been financed by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Major Resource Enhancement grant and is led by Lee Grieveson (University College London) and Colin MacCabe (Birkbeck/Pittsburgh). The project will lead to the production of a detailed catalogue of the entire corpus of films representing British colonies either factually or fictionally held by the British Film Institute, the Imperial War Museum, and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. The process of producing this catalogue, which aims to marry the most advanced academic knowledge to the best archival practice, has raised new questions both about British imperial history, the history of British cinema, and the history of didactic cinema. The final catalogue will identify over 6000 films and some 10% of the collection will have enhanced entries bringing a wealth of detailed knowledge to illuminate particular films. In addition there will be entries on a series of broader topics relating to colonialism and British cinema. Two post-doctoral researchers have been examining these collections for over a year, and have been recently joined by a third, and the project runs until September 2010. The catalogue will be available online together with 30 hours of digitized film.
The production of the catalogue as a major academic resource is dependent on conferences that will make the richness of these collections available to the widest possible academic and archival audience. The first conference, covering the years 1896-1939, will be held in London in June 2010, and the final conference will be held in Pittsburgh in September 2010 and will focus on the years 1939-1965. Archival screenings of rare material will take place at both conferences alongside presentations by senior archivists. Together, the conferences will seek to develop both historical and contemporary understanding of the British Empire, of the role of cinema in practices of colonialism, of the different generic formations of colonial cinema, and of the interconnections of media and liberal imperialism.
We welcome contributors from a wide variety of disciplines to seek to understand the interplay of political control and cultural representation in the late colonial period, and the ways that cinema was used as part of projects of colonial governance. The conferences are divided according to historical period but this structure will not preclude papers that pursue issues that cut across periods, like, for example, conceptual questions about colonialism and cinema or the long lineage of liberal imperialism and its continuing resonance. Papers will likely address film production, exhibition, and distribution from 1895 to the separate moments of independence, including various kinds of non-fictional and non-theatrical film – industrial films, newsreels, instructional films, government produced documentaries, ethnographic, travelogue, amateur – and the articulation of fictions of Empire.
Keynote speakers confirmed thus far include Paul Gilroy (LSE), Tom Gunning (Chicago), Pat Manning (Pittsburgh), Priya Jaikumar (USC), Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck), and Gayatri Spivak (Columbia). Two edited collections will be produced from papers initially presented at the conferences.
