Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas (UNAM)

XLI International Colloquium on Art History
Between Image and Text

The relations between images and texts are one of the most important problems for the history of the arts, because they concern precisely their plurality and their significance. That is why they have captured the attention of artists, theorists and critics of art and literature since classical antiquity. For Western art, perhaps the simile of Horacio ut pictura poesis is the one that best expresses the relation between twin arts, giving rise to reflections that were crucial for the European culture and that led to the ideas of Lessing. But even after Lessing's effort to separate each art in different fields, the interrelation between words and images, graphics and figurations did not cease, neither in artistic production nor in iconographic, historiographic and semiotic studies. New studies of images have endorsed the interest to understand the passages, permeability and transit between words and images.

This is just one of the genealogies of this problem, which extends beyond the limits of linguistics, hermeneutics and semiotics. Under a conception developed in different semiotic perspectives, the interest in text, as a significant fabric, allows us to think of different dynamics for the analysis of images and languages. The decoding of the visual elements is not linear, for it is open to hesitations, regressions, choices and accidents, to a similar degree with respect to the writings. The supposed linearity of the written text is determined by the reading order and the syntax of the language it represents, but this is not to be understood either in a strict or unbreakable sense, since the graphic and permanent presence of signs allows the reader to return and reread the text if he wishes to.

In this way, intermediality — as has been called the collaboration between written texts, images and notations — supports the study of works of art, as well as many other forms of visual, textual and sound expression. Therefore, the Colloquium seeks to weave different genealogies and problematics of different disciplines around the articulations and interstices between images and texts (visual, verbal or sonorous, among others).

This edition of the Colloquium proposes to gather the discussion in the following panels, which can be reformulated according to the proposals received:

a) The debate on the boundaries between writing and image
Disciplinary or interdisciplinary theoretical reflections and/or case studies: history of art, grammatology, historiography, semiotics, anthropology, linguistics, philology, aesthetics, iconography, tratadistics.

b) Writing itself as part of visual culture
Beyond its strict value of reading, the graphemes of the writing systems are important components of design and visuality, that can be approached from formal points of view: calligraphy, typography, paleography. Writing and other systems of notation: storyboarding, musical, stage and/or dance notation, quipus, graphs, codes, etcetera.

c) Iconotext, ekphrasis and intermediation
Theoretical reflections and/or case studies on collaboration and opposition between texts and images: titles and works, captions, texts within images, images within texts, illustration and activation; phylacteries, text bubbles, cartouches and highlights. Story and description.

Guidelines
1. Proposals must be submitted in either English or Spanish, must have a tentative title and also include a summary, not exceeding 500 words, on the paper to be developed. Only one proposal
per author will be accepted.

2. Proposals must briefly explain why you wish to participate on a given panel. Please attach a résumé of not more than 150 words, highlighting your main academic work and your academic
affiliation.

3. Deadline for submitting proposals is Friday, April 28, 2017.

4. Proposals will be evaluated by a Committee made up of members of the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas and other institutions, who will select them based on criteria of quality
and thematic relevance.

5. The Committee's decision will be announced no later than Friday, May 26, 2017 and will be final.

6. Once the papers are accepted, the text’s requirements are: 3000 words or 12 pages, double spaced, to be read in 25 minutes. Speakers must complete the form attached regarding the copyrights of the paper and its images. Those papers that are not delivered in time will not be accepted and will be removed from the definite program.

7. The paper to be presented should be delivered before Friday, September 8, 2017, in order for the commentators to prepare their interventions. Papers received afterwards will not be accepted and will be omitted from the final program.

8. Papers accepted and presented at the Colloquium will be submitted for arbitration for the digital publication of the Colloquium memories. The Committee will determine which papers will be included in the digital book. The authors will be notified no later than Tuesday, October 24, 2017.

Final versions must comply with the following characteristics: a maximum of 25 pages (8 000 words using Chicago referencing system) and 8 images. Authors must obtain their image reproduction permits. The IIE will or will not publish them in terms of their cost.

The deadline to submit the papers is Friday, December 8, 2017. After this date no papers will be accepted.

Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, January, 2017.

Please send your proposal to the following address:

Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM
Circuito Maestro Mario de la Cueva s/n
Zona Cultural, Ciudad Universitaria
Coyoacán, 04510, Ciudad de México
Phones (52 55) 5662 7250, (52 55) 5662 6999
E-mails: badisa1979gmail.com