Thursday November 16, 14:00—20:30
Exhibition opens
Exhibition opens at 14:00
Join us for an opening drink from 16:00
Join us for an opening drink from 16:00
Words of welcome and introduction
Erwin Goegebeur, Professor Bert Willems, Pieter Vermeulen, Toon Leën
Burning Images: Performing Resemblance
Dr Florian Göttke
University of Amsterdam & Dutch Art Institute
It has often been argued that people’s empathetic (or antipathetic) response to images stems from images’ visual resemblance to their ‘prototype.’ Drawing from my research on the use of effigies in political protest, I argue that it is not the perception of lifelikeness, but rather conventions governing these theatrical protest performances that compel people to engage in make-believe, to act as if these images were alive, and to experience and express feelings towards them.
University of Amsterdam & Dutch Art Institute
It has often been argued that people’s empathetic (or antipathetic) response to images stems from images’ visual resemblance to their ‘prototype.’ Drawing from my research on the use of effigies in political protest, I argue that it is not the perception of lifelikeness, but rather conventions governing these theatrical protest performances that compel people to engage in make-believe, to act as if these images were alive, and to experience and express feelings towards them.
Q&A
Moderator: Dr Ying Sze Pek
Images and Objects: Russia’s War against Ukraine
Professor Miglė Bareikytė
European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
Natasha Klimenko
Freie Universität Berlin
Dr Mykola Homanyuk
Kherson State University
Dr Bohdan Shumylovych
Center for Urban History, L’viv
Dr Denys Shatalov
Centre for Advanced Study Sofia
The video essay Images and Objects: Russia’s War against Ukraine explores the possibilities and boundaries of an empathic gaze, while providing a personal engagement with various forms of visual representation in the context of multi-sensory warfare. Using art and documentation by Ukrainian practitioners, Images and Objects explores the participants’ personal or academic relationship to images, monuments, museums, and environments in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. This video is made in collaboration with Mykola Homanyuk, Svitlana Matviyenko, Gintautas Mažeikis, Denys Shatalov, Bohdan Shumylovych and features artworks by Kateryna Lisovenko, Mykyta Lyskov, and Danylo Movchan.
Following the screening of Images and Objects, Natasha Klimenko and Miglė Bareikytė will be in conversation with Mykola Homanyuk, Bohdan Shumylovych, and Denys Shatalov, who will join them virtually from Ukraine.
European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
Natasha Klimenko
Freie Universität Berlin
Dr Mykola Homanyuk
Kherson State University
Dr Bohdan Shumylovych
Center for Urban History, L’viv
Dr Denys Shatalov
Centre for Advanced Study Sofia
The video essay Images and Objects: Russia’s War against Ukraine explores the possibilities and boundaries of an empathic gaze, while providing a personal engagement with various forms of visual representation in the context of multi-sensory warfare. Using art and documentation by Ukrainian practitioners, Images and Objects explores the participants’ personal or academic relationship to images, monuments, museums, and environments in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. This video is made in collaboration with Mykola Homanyuk, Svitlana Matviyenko, Gintautas Mažeikis, Denys Shatalov, Bohdan Shumylovych and features artworks by Kateryna Lisovenko, Mykyta Lyskov, and Danylo Movchan.
Following the screening of Images and Objects, Natasha Klimenko and Miglė Bareikytė will be in conversation with Mykola Homanyuk, Bohdan Shumylovych, and Denys Shatalov, who will join them virtually from Ukraine.
Friday November 17, 9:00—20:00
Registration and coffee
DEMONSTRATING CONCERNS
Introduction
Sentimental Pictures Between beweeglijkheid and Einfühlung: Towards a Definition
Dr Kasper Lægring
Aarhus University
For the modernist avant-gardes, as well as for an art history moulded in its image, it seemed self-evident that sentimentality was a bad thing, both ethically and aesthetically. Lately, however, theorists have begun to revisit the sentimental art of the nineteenth century, and to question the claims that sentimental works of art can have no share in empathy. Using two key terms related to empathy in a phenomenological sense—beweeglijkheid and Einfühlung—this paper seeks to deepen our understanding of what sentimentality in painting entails.
Aarhus University
For the modernist avant-gardes, as well as for an art history moulded in its image, it seemed self-evident that sentimentality was a bad thing, both ethically and aesthetically. Lately, however, theorists have begun to revisit the sentimental art of the nineteenth century, and to question the claims that sentimental works of art can have no share in empathy. Using two key terms related to empathy in a phenomenological sense—beweeglijkheid and Einfühlung—this paper seeks to deepen our understanding of what sentimentality in painting entails.
Sculpting Empathy: Representing the Destitute in Nineteenth-Century British Sculpture
Dr Claire Jones
University of Birmingham
This paper identifies a shift in sculpture in nineteenth-century Britain: an attempt by sculptors to represent aspects of modern life, which in turn enabled new subjects, narratives, and experiences to be articulated in sculpture. I focus on sculptures of the poor and destitute. I explore how these sculptures addressed lived contemporary experience, with the intention of prompting an empathetic connection between the viewer and the represented subject, and how they might also form a potential space for empathy today.
University of Birmingham
This paper identifies a shift in sculpture in nineteenth-century Britain: an attempt by sculptors to represent aspects of modern life, which in turn enabled new subjects, narratives, and experiences to be articulated in sculpture. I focus on sculptures of the poor and destitute. I explore how these sculptures addressed lived contemporary experience, with the intention of prompting an empathetic connection between the viewer and the represented subject, and how they might also form a potential space for empathy today.
Coffee break
Imagineering Empathy: Empathic Projection with the Optical Lantern (1880–1920)
Anse De Weerdt
Université libre de Bruxelles & University of Antwerp
Dr Bart G. Moens
Université libre de Bruxelles & University of Antwerp
Concentrating on a case of anti-alcohol propaganda by means of the optical lantern during the first decade of the twentieth century, this contribution aims to scrutinise the notion of empathic projection through the concept of Imagineering (Korsten et al. 2021). Through a live optical lantern performance, we will explore the (intended) affective and empathic involvement of these projected images on a formal level (using techniques from the arts, theatre, and photography) and on a societal level (individually and collectively).
Université libre de Bruxelles & University of Antwerp
Dr Bart G. Moens
Université libre de Bruxelles & University of Antwerp
Concentrating on a case of anti-alcohol propaganda by means of the optical lantern during the first decade of the twentieth century, this contribution aims to scrutinise the notion of empathic projection through the concept of Imagineering (Korsten et al. 2021). Through a live optical lantern performance, we will explore the (intended) affective and empathic involvement of these projected images on a formal level (using techniques from the arts, theatre, and photography) and on a societal level (individually and collectively).
Panel Discussion
Moderator: Professor Nadia Sels
Lunch break
POLITICS OF PROJECTION
Envisioned Projection and Projected Vision: The Agency of the Image in Early Soviet Art Praxis
Amir Saifullin
University of Zurich
My presentation focuses on projection as an artistic mode for organising political vision, as developed by the Projectionists—an understudied Soviet avant-garde movement from the 1920s. I explore how, within their praxis, the image mediates the relationship between projected vision and envisioned projection, and emerges as a reflection of how the world is perceived, thus becoming a means to transform perception. I then critically evaluate projection as a visual strategy, examining both the political and creative possibilities discovered by the Projectionists, as well as the limitations exposed by their work.
University of Zurich
My presentation focuses on projection as an artistic mode for organising political vision, as developed by the Projectionists—an understudied Soviet avant-garde movement from the 1920s. I explore how, within their praxis, the image mediates the relationship between projected vision and envisioned projection, and emerges as a reflection of how the world is perceived, thus becoming a means to transform perception. I then critically evaluate projection as a visual strategy, examining both the political and creative possibilities discovered by the Projectionists, as well as the limitations exposed by their work.
With these Hands: An Examination of the Context and Legacy of Russell Lee’s Most Famous and Most Empathetic Photograph: The Gnarled Hands of Theresia Ostermeyer
Professor James R. Swensen
University of Zurich
On his first travelling assignment for the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration (later known as the Farm Security Administration), Russell Lee photographed two homesteaders, Mr and Mrs Ostermeyer, as they were being evicted from their farm on a cold December day in 1936. One of Lee’s pictures was a close up of Theresia Ostermeyer’s hands. This deeply empathetic image—a powerful synecdoche of a life of hard work, hardship, and pain—became an icon of the Great Depression. This paper examines the context of Lee’s photograph as well as the ways in which it has continued to resonate with audiences and image-makers.
University of Zurich
On his first travelling assignment for the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration (later known as the Farm Security Administration), Russell Lee photographed two homesteaders, Mr and Mrs Ostermeyer, as they were being evicted from their farm on a cold December day in 1936. One of Lee’s pictures was a close up of Theresia Ostermeyer’s hands. This deeply empathetic image—a powerful synecdoche of a life of hard work, hardship, and pain—became an icon of the Great Depression. This paper examines the context of Lee’s photograph as well as the ways in which it has continued to resonate with audiences and image-makers.
Coffee break
The Semiotics of the Kitchen
Professor Stella Viljoen
Stellenbosch University
This paper considers three artists who utilise photography in their affective documentation of the kitchen. How does their art move the viewer towards a political understanding of taste and culture? How do these artists critique and construct narratives of kitsch(ens) and what is the relationship between ‘distinction’ and ‘empathy’? Might sexy, consumable, and relatable images still function as semiotic provocateurs or agentic trouble-makers or is kitsch necessarily trite and impotent? The paper is a means of tracking empathy in the feminist archive.
Stellenbosch University
This paper considers three artists who utilise photography in their affective documentation of the kitchen. How does their art move the viewer towards a political understanding of taste and culture? How do these artists critique and construct narratives of kitsch(ens) and what is the relationship between ‘distinction’ and ‘empathy’? Might sexy, consumable, and relatable images still function as semiotic provocateurs or agentic trouble-makers or is kitsch necessarily trite and impotent? The paper is a means of tracking empathy in the feminist archive.
Panel Discussion
Moderator: Dr Tom Lambeens
Coffee break
A Film Jar—On the Questions of Power and Innocence in Documentary Film Practice
Dr Ira Goryainova
Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound (RITCS), Brussels
Starting with the premise that any documentary portrayal has something dominating and destructive in its nature, this performance—unfolding itself in the montage space of a filmmaker—tackles the relationship between the director and her protagonist, the construction and consequences of the gaze, as well as the vacuum of a film, which takes a real-life person hostage, engulfs, and seals them in forever.
Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound (RITCS), Brussels
Starting with the premise that any documentary portrayal has something dominating and destructive in its nature, this performance—unfolding itself in the montage space of a filmmaker—tackles the relationship between the director and her protagonist, the construction and consequences of the gaze, as well as the vacuum of a film, which takes a real-life person hostage, engulfs, and seals them in forever.
Coffee break
KEYNOTE LECTURE - Counter Shots
Christina Varvia
Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London & Aarhus University
In this talk, Christina Varvia will present a series of cases by Forensic Architecture, where the dominant power of images is met by counter-shots from the ground. Itinerant witnesses turn their gaze back and reveal the way visual and biopolitical regimes stratify and racialise human life. The image-sections they produce carry evidentiary traces and get assembled and re-assembled in different models in our news cycles and in our brains, forming the nebulas of truth.
Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London & Aarhus University
In this talk, Christina Varvia will present a series of cases by Forensic Architecture, where the dominant power of images is met by counter-shots from the ground. Itinerant witnesses turn their gaze back and reveal the way visual and biopolitical regimes stratify and racialise human life. The image-sections they produce carry evidentiary traces and get assembled and re-assembled in different models in our news cycles and in our brains, forming the nebulas of truth.
Q&A
Moderator: Professor Liesbeth Huybrechts
Saturday November 18, 9:00—17:30
Registration and coffee
VISUALISING MIGRATION
Introduction
‘Composite Images’ and Counter-Forensics
Dr Antigoni Memou
University of East London
This talk examines Forensic Oceanography’s interdisciplinary methodology for reconstructing ‘composite images,’ which attest to the systemic violence against migrant people at European Union’s maritime borders. The talk questions the role these images can play in holding accountable those responsible for human rights’ violations and the death of migrant people. The civic practice of ‘counter-forensics’ will be further discussed by asking whether new forms of political resistance to border violence can be constituted by rendering systemic violence and fields of pro-migration struggles visible.
University of East London
This talk examines Forensic Oceanography’s interdisciplinary methodology for reconstructing ‘composite images,’ which attest to the systemic violence against migrant people at European Union’s maritime borders. The talk questions the role these images can play in holding accountable those responsible for human rights’ violations and the death of migrant people. The civic practice of ‘counter-forensics’ will be further discussed by asking whether new forms of political resistance to border violence can be constituted by rendering systemic violence and fields of pro-migration struggles visible.
Presenting or Representing: Artistic Empathy to the Test of Contemporary Migrations
Dr Paul Bernard-Nouraud
Aix-Marseille University
Over the last decade, countless initiatives have been taken in the artistic field to address contemporary migration. Many commentators have criticised these projects for either lacking empathy or for displaying too much empathy. One of the main practical and theoretical issues that emerges in relation to such artistic approaches is the dilemma of presenting or representing migrations and migrants. This lecture aims to frame this debate and its theoretical concerns by focusing on several significant artistic proposals.
Aix-Marseille University
Over the last decade, countless initiatives have been taken in the artistic field to address contemporary migration. Many commentators have criticised these projects for either lacking empathy or for displaying too much empathy. One of the main practical and theoretical issues that emerges in relation to such artistic approaches is the dilemma of presenting or representing migrations and migrants. This lecture aims to frame this debate and its theoretical concerns by focusing on several significant artistic proposals.
Coffee break
BIAŁO_REC
berte & harmey
berte & harmey will co-present a lecture performance using a set of images from two research trips to Białowieża forest in Poland—a site of fragile natural habitats, which also acts as a hostile, militarised environment for people on the move. How can the particular tools of art be used to navigate, interrogate, and reflect on such a charged context? Can images help us to engage with the experiential world of people on the move—whom we do not see? How can we empathise with an invisible subject?
berte & harmey will co-present a lecture performance using a set of images from two research trips to Białowieża forest in Poland—a site of fragile natural habitats, which also acts as a hostile, militarised environment for people on the move. How can the particular tools of art be used to navigate, interrogate, and reflect on such a charged context? Can images help us to engage with the experiential world of people on the move—whom we do not see? How can we empathise with an invisible subject?
Panel Discussion
Moderator: Toon Leën
Lunch break
CREATING COUNTER-IMAGES
Talking Back to History: Violent Pasts and the Politics of Representation in the Work of Nnenna Onuoha and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński
Dr Birgit Eusterschulte
Freie Universität Berlin
In the exploration of the colonial past and coloniality in contemporary art, the question of how to deal with depictions of violence is of great importance. Focusing on filmic works by Nnenna Onuoha and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, this lecture examines different artistic strategies of countering history and the respective ways of dealing with images of violent pasts. A central question is how do artists talk back to the violence of images and involve the viewer in reflecting on the dilemmas and politics of representation.
Freie Universität Berlin
In the exploration of the colonial past and coloniality in contemporary art, the question of how to deal with depictions of violence is of great importance. Focusing on filmic works by Nnenna Onuoha and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, this lecture examines different artistic strategies of countering history and the respective ways of dealing with images of violent pasts. A central question is how do artists talk back to the violence of images and involve the viewer in reflecting on the dilemmas and politics of representation.
Images as Empathic Agents in the Current Neuroimaging Research on Hysteria/FND
Dr Paula Muhr
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Hysteria is no longer thought to exist. But since the 2000s, there has been a revival of medical research into hysteria, renamed as functional neurological disorder (FND), using state-of-the-art neuroimaging technologies. I argue that by linking FND patients’ previous traumatic experiences to visualisable pathological changes in brain structure and function, brain images serve as agents of concern. By grounding the previously contested symptoms into trauma-induced neuroplastic changes, these images provide visual evidence for the reality of patients’ experience of illness, which had long been dismissed as simulation.
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Hysteria is no longer thought to exist. But since the 2000s, there has been a revival of medical research into hysteria, renamed as functional neurological disorder (FND), using state-of-the-art neuroimaging technologies. I argue that by linking FND patients’ previous traumatic experiences to visualisable pathological changes in brain structure and function, brain images serve as agents of concern. By grounding the previously contested symptoms into trauma-induced neuroplastic changes, these images provide visual evidence for the reality of patients’ experience of illness, which had long been dismissed as simulation.
Coffee break
Seeing Nothing—Empathy and Invisibility (Or “Blackness is the Site where Absolute Nothingness and the World of Things Converge”)
Dr Andrew Warstat
Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University
When an image presents us with something that we cannot see or face, we imaginatively move towards or create a rapport sans rapport (following Maurice Blanchot and Jean-Luc Nancy). The unstable ground of our relation to the image is a blurry zone where experience, aesthetics, ethics, and our bodies and senses merge and intermix. This lecture explores the necessary uncertainty about the disposition individual viewers should take when faced with something that is literally about the ‘un-see-ability’ of something. As a case in point, the talk will discuss the dismantling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol, UK as an ethical, empathetic action—an attempt to see something unseeable (the experience of slavery).
Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University
When an image presents us with something that we cannot see or face, we imaginatively move towards or create a rapport sans rapport (following Maurice Blanchot and Jean-Luc Nancy). The unstable ground of our relation to the image is a blurry zone where experience, aesthetics, ethics, and our bodies and senses merge and intermix. This lecture explores the necessary uncertainty about the disposition individual viewers should take when faced with something that is literally about the ‘un-see-ability’ of something. As a case in point, the talk will discuss the dismantling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol, UK as an ethical, empathetic action—an attempt to see something unseeable (the experience of slavery).
Eyes That Do Not See
Dámaso Randulfe
Royal College of Art, London
Two exhumations frame the stratigraphy of the Spanish Empire. On one end, the sixteenth-century extraction of Sumaq Urqu's silver violently inaugurates a new geological and civilisational era. On the other end, the ongoing search for thousands of mass graves unearths the mechanisms of fascist terror in twentieth-century Spain. Exploring the entanglement of these pivotal exhumations, this lecture charts a fossil ecology inscribed between the surface of the image and the depth of the earth.
Royal College of Art, London
Two exhumations frame the stratigraphy of the Spanish Empire. On one end, the sixteenth-century extraction of Sumaq Urqu's silver violently inaugurates a new geological and civilisational era. On the other end, the ongoing search for thousands of mass graves unearths the mechanisms of fascist terror in twentieth-century Spain. Exploring the entanglement of these pivotal exhumations, this lecture charts a fossil ecology inscribed between the surface of the image and the depth of the earth.
Coffee break
Seeing with Your Own Eyes? When the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Visits Indigenous Territories
Nina Valerie Kolowratnik
Ghent University
In 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in Costa Rica, decided to exchange legal robes for backpacks and visit for the first time the land of the Sarayaku people in the Ecuadorian Amazon so its judges could ‘see with their own eyes’ how the community there was affected by alleged human-rights abuses. The court has since organised five more in-situ visits to Indigenous territories. This talk discusses how the court’s first case involving Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation, the ongoing case of the Tagaeri and Taromenane Indigenous people vs the Ecuadorian state, challenges the court’s approach to ‘seeing’ evidence—both conceptually and practically.
Ghent University
In 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in Costa Rica, decided to exchange legal robes for backpacks and visit for the first time the land of the Sarayaku people in the Ecuadorian Amazon so its judges could ‘see with their own eyes’ how the community there was affected by alleged human-rights abuses. The court has since organised five more in-situ visits to Indigenous territories. This talk discusses how the court’s first case involving Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation, the ongoing case of the Tagaeri and Taromenane Indigenous people vs the Ecuadorian state, challenges the court’s approach to ‘seeing’ evidence—both conceptually and practically.
Panel Discussion
Moderator: Dr Maria Gil Ulldemolins
