ECAS 2013
5th European Conference on African Studies African dynamics in a
multipolar world

Panel:
Revolution 3.0: iconographies of utopia in Africa and its diaspora

This panel investigates the emergence of images as imaginations of
futures. As seismographers of radical shifts within societies, images
often anticipate changes before they appear in the political and
social discourse. Revolutions as epitomes of social change produce
visual figurations in art, film and popular cultures.

Africa is rarely discussed with a perspective on revolution and utopia
in the sense of positive powerful concepts of futures. We argue that
the investigation of visual archives of African revolutions may
provide knowledge about appearance and trajectories of dynamic icons
and the 'agency' of images (Gell 1998). Their affiliations and
clusters in different media provide a deeper understanding of
projections of futures and their relation to the past. If revolutions
aim at something new, a "concrete utopia" (Bloch 1985), this has to be
reflected in images as well. New images, we argue, can only emerge in
the field of aesthetics, where imaginations of utopian space and time
(Rancière 2006) are possible. Art emerges not as a tool for
propaganda, but as powerful element of social and aesthetic discourse.

We invite interdisciplinary perspectives from literature, cinema and
art studies, visual anthropology and cultural studies. We ask for
different projections of the future from Africa and how these
imaginations are traceable in art, film, and popcultures. How are they
related to historical moments: revolutions, independences and the
aftermaths? How can they (re-)define historical events? How can new
images, imaginations, concepts of future be generated? How do
aesthetic practice and politics relate in situations of change?

Contact: nadine.siegertuni-bayreuth.de
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/ecas/ecas2013/panels.php5?PanelID=2081