Exzellenzcluster Bild Wissen Gestaltung, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
www.situation-space-conference.org



Situation Space. 
How Spatial Images Define the User’s Disposition

International conference, January 12th and 13th 2017

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung. An Interdisciplinary Laboratory
Sophienstrasse 22a, 10178 Berlin,
Central Laboratory (2nd courtyard, 2nd floor)

Please register for free at: www.situation-space-conference.org



Contemporary imaging, sensor and display technologies have turned viewing predominantly into using. Interacting with visual devices and interfaces such as virtual reality headsets, augmented reality apps or navigation systems situate users in space both within and beyond the boundaries of the screen, for instance when playing Pokémon Goon a smartphone, or when superimposing medical images on a patient’s body. Narrative media such as stereoscopic movies, volumetric cameras or curved displays also require a visual practice that spatially aligns image and viewer. In the case of a stereoscopic projection, for example, the spatial impression of the image is most intelligible and convincing if the physical position of the viewer corresponds with the camera-viewpoint.

Critically thinking about producing and perceiving images thus requires the analysis of image dispositions. Understanding the spatiality of images requires a consideration of situation space, that – just as the situation room – implies and defines the need for action. With regard to spatial images we thus ask, how do screens situate the viewer in physical space and within the visualised space? Are these spaces connected by means of interface and interaction design, content creation or narrative strategies? Does the ability of the viewer to physically and visually navigate through the image increase or decrease, if the images can be characterized as spatial? And following that, how and where is agency ascribed to the viewing of images? Do forms of spatially related visual practice prompt the viewer to connect action and perception? And does this require a re-conceptualisation of the dichotomy of viewer and user? In short: how does the image (understood as the alliance of screen and visualisation) conceptualise and define the user’s spatial disposition?

The analysis of the visual construction and representation of space, as well as the associated iterative interplay of structures and processes in front and behind the screen has been a concern of aesthetics, art history, image- and film-theory, media studies, visual studies and science and technology studies. But traditional views on the spatiality of the image are challenged by contemporary imaging technology, which proposes new forms of visual practice. New approaches concentrating on specific aspects, such as the mobility (Verhoeff 2012), and archaeology (Huhtamo 2012), social, narrative, and architectural structures (Elsaesser 1998), or the three-dimensionality (Schröter 2014) of screens and visualisations, reflect the turn towards the particular role of the image in situating action and perception.

The conference aims to apply theoretical and practical approaches in a discussion of the operative and narrative implications of visual practices as spatial dispositions. In order to analyse how images define and situate viewers’ action and perception, the workshop focuses on visual practices such as mobile displays, mixed reality games, screen architectures and stereoscopic media.

References

Elsaesser, Thomas (1998) Digital Cinema: Delivery, Event, Time, in: Elsaesser, Thomas; Hoffmann, Kay: Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable? The Screen Arts in the Digital Age, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 201-222.

Huhtamo, Erkki (2012) “Screen Tests: Why Do We Need an Archaeology of the Screen?”, Cinema Journal, Vol. 51, No. 2, 144-148.
Schröter, Jens (2014) 3D. History, Theory and Aesthetics of the Transplane Image. New York, Bloomsbury.

Verhoeff, Nanna (2012) Mobile Screens: The Visual Regime of Navigation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Program

Thursday, January 12, 2017

09.00 Registration & Coffee

09.30–10.00 Welcome & Introduction

Track: Spaces of Narration

10.00–11.15 Keynote

Erkki Huhtamo: Screenology, or Media Archaeology of the Screen

Chair: Luisa Feiersinger

11.15–11.45 Break

11.45–13.15 Panel I

Jesko Jockenhövel: The Immersive-Excessive Style of Digital 3D

Sarah Atkinson: Simulacinema: Production as Reception in Contemporary Spaces of Film Consumption

Chair: NN

13.15–14.30 Break

14.30–16.30 Panel 2

Paul Kaiser / OpenEndedGroup: Interview and Screening.

Chair: Luisa Feiersinger

Friday, January 13, 2017

Track: Mobile Interfaces

10.00–11.15 Keynote

Nanna Verhoeff: Interfacing the City: A Layered Perspective on Urban Situated and Mobile Spectatorship

Chair: Kathrin Friedrich

11.15–11.45 Break

11.45–13.15 Panel 3

Jason Farman: Spatial Stories and the Mobile Interface

Inge Hinterwaldner: VR – a Reality Based on Perception with Psychology as its Physics?

Chair: Kathrin Friedrich

13.15–14.30 Break

Track: Volumetric Images

14.30–15.45 Keynote

Jens Schröter: Viewing Zone: The Volumetric Image, Spatial Knowledge and Collaborative Practice

Chair: Moritz Queisner

15.45–16.15 Break

16.30–18.00 Panel 4

Simon Weidert: Augmented reality as enabling technology for the surgeon of tomorrow?

NN: Volumetric Imaging

Chair: Moritz Queisner

18.00 Concluding remarks and reception

Luisa Feiersinger (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Das Technische Bild, BildFilmRaum)

Kathrin Friedrich (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung. An Interdisciplinary Laboratory)


Moritz Queisner (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung. An Interdisciplinary Laboratory)


Organisation: Henrik Utermöhle (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung. An Interdisciplinary Laboratory, Das Technische Bild)