Call for Papers

SHOWING MAKING. International Conference on the Representation of
Image Making and Creative Practices in Ritual, Art, Media and Science

June 18 - 19, 2009
Filmmuseum, Amsterdam

organized by the Department of Media and Culture Studies (Utrecht
University) and the Meertens Institute (Royal Netherlands Academy of
Arts and Sciences)
in collaboration with the Dutch Filmmuseum.

If making is thinking, as Richard Sennett has recently argued in his
book The Craftsman, studying making can enable us to understand
cultural products, such as images. In current academic debate, images
are often discussed as immaterial bearers of meaning. Yet paintings,
films, computer animation and scientific images are the results of
skilled procedures and complex interaction between makers, materials,
tools and technologies, which generate and shape meaning. Based on
tacit knowledge, these procedures and interactions tend to evade
textual description and are, although enclosed in the finished
product, usually not recorded. So how do we get ou hands and minds at
these material procedures if we want to study the meaning of making?

We propose to study visual genres specifically dedicated to the
representation of image making; depictions of practice that have in
fact a long tradition in western and non-western cultures. These
depictions contain information about the social, anthropological,
technological, material and aesthetic dimensions of image production.
However, they are shaped by interesting paradoxes. On the one hand
they enable a peak behind the scenes, providing knowledge about image
making procedures. On the other hand they invest creation with
magical qualities and mystify the actions of the image-maker. As
mediated constructs, they display ideal aspects of creative processes
and tend to omit failure or routine - as art works they foreground
self-referentiality as critical strategy. Taking these aspects into
consideration showing making can be turned into a theoretical tool to
study image making as intellectual and meaningful practice.

This conference wants to trace instances of showing making across
media, history and cultures. From St. Luke painting the Virgin Mary
to Bob Ross painting trees; from depictions of bronze casting and
glass blowing to the opening of the eyes of the Buddha and the ritual
creation of idols; from youtube video’s of drawing contests,
makezine’s and tutorials on powerpoint to the history of the making-
of; from art and industrial documentaries to illustrated handbooks on
calligraphy, pottery or photo
shop; from painting elephants and apes to the representation of
scientific and medical imaging procedures; from self-referential
animation to v-jaying and beyond.
The goal is to gather material for a history of showing making, to
analyze how image-making procedures and technologies are represented,
to study the epistemic and performative elements of showing making
and to create a framework in which the visualizations of image making
and creative practice can be theorized.

Sessions and confirmed key-note speakers
The Display of Creative Practice - Timothy Ingold, Social
Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
Scientific Images in the Making - Pamela H. Smith, History, Columbia
University
Image Making Rituals - Donald Swearer, Buddhist Studies, Harvard
Divinity School
Showing Painting - H. Perry Chapman, Art History, University of Delaware
The Making of the Making-of - John Wyver, Illuminations and School of
Media, Art and Design, University of Westminster

Please email your abstract of max. 500 words and a short cv by MARCH
15 to:
A.S.Lehmannuu.nl
Ann-Sophie Lehmann
Dept. of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University

you will be notified in the first week of april

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