INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE:

TIME AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Leuven & Louvain-La-Neuve, 13-15 March 2008
Organizers : Jan Baetens, Alex Streitberger, Hilde Van Gelder

This conference is a key moment in the new international cross
disciplinary interest in photography in its relationships with time. Until
recently, the various approaches of photography and time were elaborated
in relative isolation. Among these approaches were: the narratological,
poetological and art-theoretical approaches, which study the
representation of time in the fixed image and its multiple decodings by an
active reader; the historical approach, which considers the photograph a
form of historical evidence; and the anthropological approach, which
examines the photograph the transformations of the image as a material
object through time. The members of the organizing committee, the keynote
speakers, and the various contributors, have all published widely not just
within one or more of these perspectives, but have encountered within
their own research the necessity to theorize the interdisciplinary
dimensions of the ongoing work as well as to implement them in new joint
research projects, which will be debated during the conference. The
conference tackles the major challenges that have emerged in recent
theoretical research in the field of time and photography. Its basic
methodological and theoretical framework is interdisciplinary, with a
strong focus on philosophically informed art historical interpretations
and culturally inspired formal analysis of the photographic image as well
as of photography as a social practice. The conference concentrates on the
necessity of recovering the balance between the spatial and the temporal,
the formally descriptive and the historically interpretive approaches of
photography in photography which is no longer restricted to the mere field
of artistic photography, but includes a.o. the documentary and the
scientific use of the medium.

Keynote speakers:
Louis Kaplan
Graham Smith
Sally Stein
Victor Burgin

THURSDAY 13TH OF MARCH (K.U.LEUVEN)

Afternoon programme
Parallel session 1: History, Time and Memory
Chair: Jan Baetens (KUL)
MSI 02.15 (Erasmusplein, 3000 Leuven)

13h45 Opening by Jan Baetens
14h00 Tom Verschaffel (KULAK)
A Historian’s view on Time and Photography
14h30 Monica Turci (University of Bologna)
Shimon Attie and historical time
15h00 Magdalena Wróblewska (University of Warsaw)
Warsaw Photographed: Time, Place and Memory

15h30 Discussion
15h50 break

16h15 Andrew Dearman (University of South Australia)
“Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead”. Disjunct Memory in an early 20th
century Danish family photo album?in early 21st century South Australia
16h45 An Paenhuysen (Humboldt-Universität Berlin)
Time and Photography in Weimar Berlin

17h15 Discussion

Parallel session 2: From instantaneous Time to waiting Time
Chair: Alex Streitberger (UCL)
MSI 02.23 (Erasmusplein, 3000 Leuven)

13h45 Opening by Alex Streitberger
14h00 Ulrike Matzer (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna)
Snapping at Time: How Snapshot Photography Constitutes and Conserves Life
14h30 Danielle Leenaerts (ULB)
La séquence photographique et la poursuite de la continuité temporelle:
aux limites de l’image fixe
15h00 Maarten Vanvolsem (KUL/Sint-Lukas Brussel)
Medium and Movement in Photography

15h30 Discussion
15h50 break

16h15 Friedrich Tietjen (Leipzig)
Still moving. The Pose as a Pause in photography
16h45 Mauricio Lissovsky (School of Communications Federal University of
Rio de Janeiro)
The Photographic device as a waiting machine

17h15 Discussion
17h45 sandwich bar (Alma)

Evening programme
DV1 91.56, auditorium Zeger Van Hee (Tiensestraat 41, 3000 Leuven)

19h30 David Green (University of Brighton)
Movement and Immobility in the Photographic Medium
20h30 Joanna Lowry (University College for the creative Arts, Canterbury)
Photography as Time-based Technology

FRIDAY 14TH OF MARCH (UCL)

Morning Programme

Parallel session 1 Time, Photography and the Construction of Identity
Chair: Liesbeth Decan (Sint-Lukas and KUL)
Collège Erasme (Eras 53)

09h45 Susana Martins (FCT/KUL)
Tradition and Modernity: photographic Portugal of the 1950s
10h15 Tania Gamez de Leon (Unam/KUL)
The Role of Photography and the construction of National Identity: The
Case of Mexico
10h45 Annelies Cousserier (KULAK)
Heritage and Nation Building in Belgian Photography

11h15 Discussion
11h30 Break

11h45 Perin Emel Yavuz (EHESS) ou Peeter Linnap (Tartu): depending on the
subject matter
12h15 Anthony Downey (Sotheby?s Institute of Art, London)
“Time was when”: Duration in the photographs of Zarina Bhimji, Yto
Barrada, Fatou Kandé Senghor and Allan deSouza
12h45 Discussion

Parallel session 2: Case Studies
Chair: Alexander Streitberger (UCL)
Collège Erasme (Eras 54)

09h45 Fabrice Duclos (Paris IV)
L'esthétique d'Alain Fleischer : la temporalisation de la lumière
photographique
10h15 Jasmin Mersmann (Humboldt Universität, Berlin)
Skiagraphein - Moving Shadows and the Inscription of Time
10h45 Heather Diack (Department of Fine Art, University of Toronto)
“Then” Again: the Photograph as Event in Bruce Nauman

11h15 Discussion
11h30 Break

11h45 Andrea Nelson (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
Caught Between Space and Time: The Photobooks of Moï Ver
12h15 Mirjam Wittmann (University of Basel)
Timeflow: Why Hiroshi Sugimoto fails the instantaneity of the photographic
image

12h45 Discussion
13h00 Lunch

Afternoon Programme
Chair: Hilde Van Gelder (KUL)
Montesquieu 04

14h30 * Louis Kaplan (University of Toronto)
Spooked Time : The Temporal Dimensions of Spirit Photography

15h15 Break

15h45 Sally Stein (UCLA)
Social and Political Readings of Photographic Time
16h35 Victor Burgin
‘The eclipse of time'

Evening programme (Leuven)
Conference Dinner (De Appel)

SATURDAY 15TH OF MARCH (K.U.LEUVEN)

Morning Programme

Parallel session 1
Chair: Jan Baetens (KUL)
PI 00.32 (Vesaliustraat 2, 3000 Leuven)

9h30 Steven Humblet (St-Lukas)
The Acceleration of Time: still photography and the image of the modern city
10h00 Perin Emel Yavuz (EHESS) ou Peeter Linnap (Tartu): depending on the
subject matter

10h30 Discussion
10h45 break

11h15 Damian Sutton (Glasgow School of Art)
A Glimpse of Immanence: loops, white-outs and urgent time
11h45 Serge Bismuth (Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens)
Concordance des temps et photographie: une adresse imaginaire grammaticalisée
12h15 Discussion

Parallel session 2: Photographic Time in Scientific Discourses and
Representations
Chair: to be confirmed
PI 00.38 (Vesaliustraat 2, 3000 Leuven)

9h30 Chitra Ramalingam (Harvard)
Fixing transience: photography and other images of time in 1830s London
10h00 Bérengère Chapuis (Paris III)
La boîte noire de Daguerre ou l?exploration d?un temps nouveau

10h30 Discussion
10h45 break

11h15 Stefanie Klamm (Max Planck Institut, Berlin)
Time of drawing, time of photography in 19th century archaeology
11h45 Samuel Melser (EHESS, Paris)
Anachronisms of prehistoric photography
12h15 Discussion
12h30 Lunch

Afternoon Programme
Chair: Jan Baetens (KUL)
PI 00.38 (Vesaliustraat 2, 3000 Leuven)

14h00 Graham Smith (Saint-Andrews University)
Time and the Calotype Tradition after Talbot
14h45 Elena Gualtieri (University of Sussex)
The Snapshot and the Instant

Contacts:
Jan BAETENS, KUL/Culturele Studies & Lieven Gevaert Centre
Mail: jan.baetens@arts.kuleuven.be
Tel. : 00 32 16 32 48 46
Fax : 00 32 16 32 50 68
Alexander STREITBERGER, UCL
Mail : alex.streitberger@uclouvain.be
Tel. : 00 32 10 47 27 85

Comité scientifique/Scientific committee:
Jan Baetens (KUL)
Hilde Van Gelder (KUL)
Alexander Streitberger (UCL)
Luc Pauwels (UA)
Monica Turci (Univ. Bologna)
Marc Emmanuel Melon (Univ. Liège)
Sémir Badir (chercheur qualifié FNRS, Liège)
David Green (Univ. of Brighton)