Compositing Gender.
Concepts of the Body and the Politics of Desire at the Interface of
Material and Visual Culture

Symposium at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI)
Center for Cultural Studies Essen/ Germany

Date:
31.03. - 02.04.2005

"Compositing", as a term is used in the practice of generating digital
images but also describes the process of an increasing overbinding and
transformation of visual elements, material objects and homogenized
surfaces, since the 1990s. For this symposium "compositing" is
discussed as a heuristic term to work on new perspectives of processes
of gender construction, especially in their relation with consumer
culture.
Compositing Gender is therefore understood as the merging and blurring
of images, bodies, objects and spaces as a practice of gendering. The
symposium focuses on different types of images, which are considered
in their social aesthetic interactions and specific contexts. This
includes images from the fields of advertisement, cinema or video, as
well as their movements between bodies and commodities in puplic
spaces, e.g. through mirrors, cameras or digital user surfaces, as
used in shopping malls or in working processes.
The term Compositing Gender will be discussed in its problematic as
well as in its potentially productive senses. This symposium intends
to contribute to the differentiation of aesthetic practices and
current approaches to the intersections of "visuality" and
"materiality" as well as the status and possibilities of images and
objects.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

16:30 - 17:30
Reception and Registration

17:30 - 18:00
Elke Gaugele/Ilka Becker: Welcome and Introduction

18:00 - 19:00
Anna McCarthy (Keynote Speech):
Gendering Modular Media: Affects and Objects

20:00
Drinks and Dinner

Friday, April 1, 2005

Blurring Boundaries

09:30 - 10:15
Gillian Swanson:
Serenity and Psychosis: Culture, Aesthetic Values and Distraction

10:15 - 10:45
Coffee Break

10:45 - 11:30
Michael Cuntz:
Making Up Seamless Continuities - The Levelling of Boundaries as a
Promise and as a Threat in Georges Perec and Michel Houellebecq

12:30
Lunch

Arcades

14:30 - 15:15
Anette Baldauf:
The She Zone. Gender Topographies of the Global Space

15:15 - 16:00
Elke Gaugele:
Changing Rooms. An Arcade Fieldwork on Technologies of Visuality,
Embodiment and Appearance

16:00
Refreshments

Branding Strategies

16:30 - 17:15
Ulrike Bergermann:
Real Time Impossible. Digital Affirmation Strategies in Adbusting and
Antibranding

17:15 - 18.00
Birgit Mersmann:
Brand Aesthetics. Corporate Identity and Body Projects in Chinese and
Korean Contemporary Art

18.00
Break

19:00 - 20:00
Videoscreening:
Knock Off. Revenge of the Logo (2003)
A Film by Anette Baldauf and Katharina Weingartner

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Fashion and Consumerism

09:30 - 10:15
Marita Bombek:
Youth, Fashion and Consumer Culture in Korea

10:15 - 10:45
Coffee Break

10:45 - 11:30
Aenne Söll:
Metrosexual? Urban Space, Consumer Culture and the Male Body in Todays
Men's Fashion Photography

11:30 - 12:15
Susanne Holschbach:
Femininity Reenacted. An Experimental Thesis on Fashion-Poses in
Latest Photography

12:15
Discussion

13:00
Lunch

The symposium will take place in the Gartensaal of the
Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI) / Center for Cultural
Studies Essen.

Due to the limited number of participants we ask you to enroll for
participation until March 15, 2005 by e-mail: doris.almenarakwi-nrw.de

There will be no conference fee. For food and drinks we have to charge
a contribution of € 20.

For further information contact: mladengladichotmail.com.

Date:
March 31 - April 2, 2005

Place:
Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen
Center for Cultural Studies Essen
Goethestr. 31
D-45128 Essen
phone: +49201/7204-260, fax: +49201/7204-111

Chair/Concept:
Elke Gaugele (University of Cologne)
Ilka Becker (Kulturwissenschaftliches Forschungskolleg/Center for
Cultural Research "Media and Cultural Communication" of the
Universities of Cologne, Bochum, Bonn and Aachen)

Organisation:
Doris Almenara (KWI Essen), Mladen Gladic (University of Cologne)

Compositing Gender
Kulturwissenschaftliches Forschungskolleg
Medien und kulturelle Kommunikation
Bernhard-Feilchenfeld-Str. 11
50969 Köln
+49 221 4706774
mladengladichotmail.com