On behalf of the Centre National de l'Audiovisuel, let me spread the word about their second conference devoted to amateur film and images. The first, held last year, brought together inspiring contributions from academic, artists and archivists working in many different disciplines. With apologies for cross-posting,

Guy Edmonds

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Due to the success of the First Interdisciplinary Conference on Amateur Images held in Luxembourg in January 2008 (the conference papers "Private Eyes and the Public Gaze. The Valorisation and Manipulation of Amateur Images" are currently in print), the Centre National de l'Audiovisuel (CNA) and the University of Luxembourg are organising a second edition entitled Tourists and Nomads. Amateur Images of Migration to be held in Luxembourg from 22 to 24 April 2010.

 

Drawing on Zygmunt Bauman's distinction between two types of deterritorialisation, lived by “tourists” (moving out of choice) or by “nomads” (migrating out of economic necessity), this conference seeks to examine how experiences of spatial displacement are being represented and communicated by self-made photographs or films. The title is deliberately left rather open to encompass all kind of disciplinary approaches (anthropology, sociology, history, visual communication, gender studies, cultural studies etc.) and to allow for archivists and artists who deal with amateur images in the context of migration to feel equally addressed.

 

The term “migration” is thus used very broadly and may be applied to colonial settlers. The question is whether and how their home movies may be used to analyse and possibly denounce the exploitation on which their lifestyle rested. Tourists and explorers – a distinction that is always in the eye of the beholder (The tourist is the other fellow, said Evelyn Waugh) – may also be considered as temporary migrants who are making great deal of photographs and films. In the digital age the number of holiday pictures and clips has exploded and one may wonder how to deal with this phenomenon, both scientifically and archivally. Political and labour migration is of course a whole field of research, but it has rarely been looked at under the viewpoint of image production, reception and conservation.

 

One question that looms large behind is that of the relationship between amateur images and historical consciousness. As Robert Rosen has put it in his contribution to Mining the Home Movies (Karen L. Ishizuka and Patricia Zimmermann, 2008), three group of intentioned memory workers converge in the construction of meaning: the amateur filmmakers themselves; those who disseminate the photographs and films (documentary filmmakers, but also archivists, academics and artists) and the audience, who has its own historical background and transforms the meaning accordingly. The conference seeks to address all three types of actors:

How did people seek to share their experience of new places and encounters with family members or friends who stayed at home?

How has this visual material been archived, used in documentary or fiction films? How have artists been using these images or have been inspired by them?  

How “migrant” are the images themselves in terms of shifting significations, new locations and contextualisations?

 

The conference Tourists and Nomads. Amateur Images of Migration will be held at the University of Luxembourg (Campus Limpertsberg) and the Centre National de l’Audiovisuel (Dudelange, L) from 22 to 24 April 2010.

 

The working language is English. Conferences may also be held in French, if accompanied by an explanatory PowerPoint presentation in English. There will be no simultaneous translation. Accommodation and travel costs (up to a certain amount) will be covered by the organisers.

Abstracts of approx. 300 words, written in French or English, and a short CV should be sent before 15 September 2009 to the following e-mail address: viviane.thill@...

 

This conference is organized by Sonja Kmec (University of Luxembourg, Research Unit IPSE – Identités, Politiques, Sociétés, Espaces) and Viviane Thill (Centre national de l’audiovisuel). It will be accompanied by a photo exhibition on the same topic, curated by Marguy Conzémius and Michèle Walerich of the Centre national de l’audiovisuel