After Orientalism: The Future of Image Production in the Middle East
The Study Sessions "After Orientalism - Contemporary Politics of Representation of the Middle East" took Edward Said’s canonical book Orientalism as the point of departure. Our guest speakers brought new and critical understandings of the violence involved in Western representations of the ‘East’ in contemporary politics and conflicts, image production and mediation, gender representation, art and literature.
The Future of Image Production in the Middle East, with Anthony Downey
In this session, Anthony Downey addressed how images circulate within the context of the Middle East today. He examined how computer generated images are not just replacing the “real” of events in the region, but determining the means by which history is been represented and archived. A key element here is the extent to which new and social media are being presented as transparent means for political ends in contemporary art practices and how cultural production is made to stand in for political action and social commentary. These processes have given rise to politicized archives and interpretive anxieties about virtual evidence and image-based historiographies, nowhere more so than when social media and digital platforms are being used as evidentiary tools to explain conflict across the Middle East.
Anthony Downey is Professor of Visual Culture in the Middle East and North Africa within the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media at Birmingham City University. He is the editor-in-chief of Ibraaz (2010-present); editor of the book series Visual Culture in the Middle East, (Sternberg Press); and sits on Editorial Board of Third Text. Recent and upcoming publications include Don’t Shrink Me to the Size of a Bullet: The Works of Hiwa K (Walther König Books, 2017); Future Imperfect: Contemporary Art Practices and Cultural Institutions in the Middle East (Sternberg Press, 2016); Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2015); Art and Politics Now (Thames and Hudson, 2014); and Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practice in North Africa and the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2014). He is currently researching Zones of Indistinction: Contemporary Visual Culture and the Cultural Logic of Late-Modernity (forthcoming, Sternberg Press, 2018).
Event:
After Orientalism: The Future of Image Production in the Middle EastDates:
13 Feb 2018, 6.30pm–8.30pmSupported by:
