How are images used to raise concerns? Why do certain images concern us more than others? And when does the image itself become a cause for concern?

This conference examines the complex ways in which images affect our emotional and cognitive understanding of the experiences and mental states of others.

Taking place in conjunction with an exhibition of video works, Agents of Concern creates a dialogue between artistic and academic ways of speaking about, with, and to images. The conference and exhibition contributors address diverse topics including the representation of migration, images of war and political protest, sentimentality in art, colonialism, human rights, and the creation of visual evidence.

The conference starts on Thursday November 16 at 18:00 with an evening programme featuring a lecture by Florian Göttke on the burning of images and a presentation by Miglė Bareikytė and Natasha Klimenko on images of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The conference programme continues on Friday and Saturday November 17 and 18 with lectures by Paul Bernard-Nouraud, Filip Berte & Cliona Harmey, Birgit Eusterschulte, Ira Goryainova, Claire Jones, Kasper Lægring, Antigoni Memou, Bart Moens & Karel Vanhaesebrouck, Paula Muhr, Nina Valerie Kolowratnik, Dámaso Randulfe, Amir Saifullin, James Swensen, Stella Viljoen, and Andrew Warstat.

The keynote lecture will be given by Christina Varvia of Forensic Architecture on Friday November 17 at 18:00.

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Register here to attend the conference:
https://forms.office.com/e/Q8dSgqaipv

The registration fee for November 17 and 18 is 15 euros per day.
Free admission for students

More information can be found in the Agents of Concern brochure:
www.agentsofconcern.com

Contact: agentsofconcernpxl.be

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CONFERENCE PROGRAMME:

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 16, 14:00—20:30

14:00—18:00: EXHIBITION OPENING

18:00—20:30: OPENING PROGRAMME

Burning Images: Performing Resemblance
- Dr Florian Göttke (University of Amsterdam & Dutch Art Institute)

Images and Objects: Russia’s War against Ukraine
- Professor Miglė Bareikytė (European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder))
- Natasha Klimenko (Freie Universität Berlin)
- Dr Mykola Homanyuk (Kherson State University)
- Dr Bohdan Shumylovych (Center for Urban History, L’viv)
- Dr Denys Shatalov (Centre for Advanced Study Sofia)

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 17, 9:00—20:00

9:00—9:15: Registration and coffee

9:20—12:30: DEMONSTRATING CONCERNS

Sentimental Pictures Between beweeglijkheid and Einfühlung: Towards a Definition
- Dr Kasper Lægring (Aarhus University)

Sculpting Empathy: Representing the Destitute in Nineteenth-Century British Sculpture
- Dr Claire Jones (University of Birmingham)

Imagineering Empathy: Empathic Projection with the Optical Lantern (1880–1920)
- Professor Karel Vanhaesebrouck (Université libre de Bruxelles)
- Dr Bart G. Moens (Université libre de Bruxelles & University of Antwerp)

12:30—13:40: Lunch break

13:40—17:30: POLITICS OF PROJECTION

Envisioned Projection and Projected Vision: The Agency of the Image in Early Soviet Art Praxis
- Amir Saifullin (University of Zurich)

With these Hands: An Examination of the Context and Legacy of Russell Lee’s Most Famous and Most Empathetic Photograph: The Gnarled Hands of Theresia Ostermeyer
- Professor James R. Swensen (Brigham Young University, Utah)

The Semiotics of the Kitchen
- Professor Stella Viljoen (Stellenbosch University)

A Film Jar—On the Questions of Power and Innocence in Documentary Film Practice
- Dr Ira Goryainova (Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound (RITCS), Brussels)

18:00—20:00: KEYNOTE LECTURE

Counter Shots
- Christina Varvia (Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London & Aarhus University)

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 18, 9:00—17:30

9:00—9:15: Registration and coffee

9:15—10:50: VISUALISING MIGRATION

‘Composite Images’ and Counter-Forensics
- Dr Antigoni Memou (University of East London)

Presenting or Representing: Artistic Empathy to the Test of Contemporary Migrations
- Dr Paul Bernard-Nouraud (Aix-Marseille University)

BIAŁO_REC
- berte & harmey

12:10—13:10: Lunch break

13:10—17:30: CREATING COUNTER-IMAGES

Talking Back to History: Violent Pasts and the Politics of Representation in the Work of Nnenna Onuoha and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński
- Dr Birgit Eusterschulte (Freie Universität Berlin)

Images as Empathic Agents in the Current Neuroimaging Research on Hysteria/FND
- Dr Paula Muhr (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)

Seeing Nothing—Empathy and Invisibility (Or “Blackness is the Site where Absolute Nothingness and the World of Things Converge”)
- Dr Andrew Warstat (Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University)

Seeing with Your Own Eyes? When the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Visits Indigenous Territories
- Nina Valerie Kolowratnik (Ghent University)

-> More information on www.agentsofconcern.com

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Agents of Concern is organised by the research group FRAME at PXL-MAD, School of Arts & Hasselt University, in collaboration with KRIEG? and CCHA.

It is made possible with support from the Flemish Government, Doctoral Schools, MuHKA, and VDB.