INTERNATIONAL VISUAL SOCIOLOGY ASSOCIATION
2008 IVSA CONFERENCE
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
August 6-8, 2008

„SPACE, TIME and IMAGE“
CALL FOR PANELS

Space, time and image. Their multiple relations and the complexity of
their interactions are the main theme of the 2008 IVSA International
Conference. This is a call for the creation of panels broadly associated
with the theme of space, time, and image. Read below for a further
elaboration of this year’s theme and requirements for panel proposal
submissions.

In 1928 Paul Valery stated: „For the last twenty years, neither space nor
time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great
innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby
affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an
amazing change in our very notion of art“. In the last two decades, the
use of images for sociological research has expanded remarkably. Art
History, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and cultural studies have
produced a multiplicity of analytical models and methodological approaches
that enrich the sociological study of visual data. As W.J.T. Mitchell,
says that for visual sociology is important to consider at the same time
the social construction of the visual and the visual construction of the
social. The sociological eye can convey meaning and signification to
images, but images as well do offer significant information about the
social. Considering the particularities of time and space within visual
regimens, taking into account how the visual is produced, used and
disseminated, offers the researcher the opportunity of studying how both
constructions are relevant for a sociological consideration of the visual.
Today, images seem to require the mediation of a particular space (museum
or public or private galleries) for its dissemination. New media and new
technology devices offer, every minute, new ways for image distribution.
This is one of the most important changes to take into account when
thinking about images at present: their ubiquity and their possibility of
not-spatial circulation. As Walter Benjamin explained, images „will make
their way towards the spectator“ and no longer force the recipient to move
to reach them. Visual sociology also studies the way museums and art
spaces should reorganize in order to consider the actual fleshless of the
visual and the fact that their traditional way of exhibiting images may
need to find a new meaning. Due to new technology, images have not only
learned to exist in the world „temporarily“ but also have introduced
temporality in their own space of representation. Images have become based
in time, and visual sociology should study their new symbolic functions.
If images have been promises of eternity for centuries, today images also
represent contingency. We encourage the presentation of panels and papers
that explore systematically the space and time connections, overlapping,
continuities and disruptions that implicitly or explicitly can be studied
when working with visual data and methods in social research.

Panel Proposals should include:
- Topic title
- A detailed description of the importance and relevance of the panel
- A short description of the types of papers sought
- Identify if this panel is methodological, empirical, or theoretical.
- Please note that you as a panel organizer, will be receiving, reviewing,
and identifying potential papers for your panel. The deadline for papers
will be May 15th., 2008

Suggested Panel Themes
- Visual cartographies
- Moving spaces for images
- Storylines. Image as narration
- Time and space: private/public/intimacy
- History of the images. Images of history
- Memory, remembrance, oblivion: visual sensibility
- Technology as Experience
- Migrating images in a global world
- Space and time: Surveillance and visual control
- Cyberspace, cybertime and cyberimages.
- Personal experiences of using visual methods in social research can also
be submitted.

All panel proposal submissions must be received by March 15th, 2008
Send to: ivsa2008englishgmail.com

http://www.visualsociology.org/conf_2008/