UTOPIAN ASPIRATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY ART AND ARCHITECTURE

Panel at the Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC 2010)
http://www.secollegeart.org/

2010 October 20-23, Virginia Commonwealth University
(Richmond, VA)

The desire to radically transform the physical and social
experience of one's surroundings through the convergence of visual
art, architecture, and technological innovation is a defining
avant-garde trope. Visionary modernist movements, ranging from
Italian Futurism and Russian Constructivism to the Bauhaus, were
followed in the post-World War II period by a proliferation of
techno-inflected futures proposed by such pioneering figures as
Buckminster Fuller, Constant, and Archigram. These groups shared
an enthusiastic engagement with complex questions concerning the
juncture between scientific inquiry and utopian ambitions.
Recognizing that each image of utopia conforms to its own time,
this panel examines how the utopian impulse has been redeployed
and tempered within contemporary artistic practice. Focus is
placed on projects that set out to re-imagine society in response
to today's global situation, characterized by rapid technological
advancement, military incursions, economic crisis, and ecological
disasters. How are these social and political issues reflected or
subverted in the works produced? What are the aims and potential
pitfalls of such socially engaged undertakings today? Papers that
advance understanding of the relationship between utopian
ideologies central to modernism and the critical negotiation of
that legacy by contemporary practitioners from across the globe
are also invited.

Send proposals by April 20, 2010 to:
Meredith Malone, Washington University in St. Louis,
meredith_malonewustl.edu

N. Elizabeth Schlatter, University Museums, University of Richmond,
eschlattrichmond.edu

http://www.curiouser.vcu.edu/
http://www.secollegeart.org/annual-conference.html