May and June at the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre -
All events free and open to all

Birkbeck, School of Art, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD, May 8 - June 19, 2013

Wednesday 8 May 2013
6:00-7:30 Keynes Library
Work in Progress Seminar
Contemplating Photographs in Rauschenberg’s Work
Professor Graham Smith (University of St Andrews)
This seminar reflects upon Brian O’Doherty’s view, articulated in 1973, that Robert Rauschenberg’s works of the 1950s and 1960s generated in the viewer a style of perception that was rapid, urban and distracted. ‘Unrewarding to full contemplative regard’, as O’Doherty put it, ‘they are best apprehended by the casual glance’. In particular, the seminar contests O’Doherty’s belief in the ‘nonspecificity’ of the photographic images that Rauschenberg appropriated and incorporated into his works and, by focusing on a small number of select works, proposes instead that giving attention to the specific character of those images can illuminate Rauschenberg’s working process while also revealing their seamless assimilation into his works.

Thursday 9 May 2013
6:00-7:30 Keynes Library
Seminar
The Making of a Cloud Observer: Swedish Meteorologist Hugo Hildebrandsson's Photography and the 19th Century Cloud Atlas
Magnus Bremmer, Stockholm University
In this paper, Bremmer explores how photography came to play a key role in the project of educating an international network of cloud observers in the nineteenth century. First considered an aid to the observation and classification of clouds, the photographic image turned into an object of observation, scrutinised under the meteorologists’ trained eye.

Tuesday 21 May 2013
6:00-8:00 Gordon Square Cinema
Mark Lewis in conversation with David Campany
Organised by Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image
Mark Lewis makes films and digital works. By using film as a gallery medium, he investigates the process of cinema production while also taking in consideration the wider tradition of photography and art. Recent films like Man (2012), Smoker at Spitalfields (2012) and City Road 24 March (2012) make direct reference to the pictorial exploration of the everyday, and in his piece Black Mirror at the National Gallery (2011) the interaction between the museum space, the mirror and the cinematic camera becomes a collaborative exercise for observation and composition making. David Campany is a writer and curator. His books include Art and Photography (Phaidon, 2003) and Photography and Cinema (Reaktion, 2008). He is currently organising exhibitions of the work of Mark Neville (at The Photographer's Gallery) and Victor Burgin (at Ambika P3).

Wednesday 19 June 2013
6:00-7:30 Keynes Library
Panel on Sport and Photography
Professor Lynda Nead (Birkbeck)
The Cut Man; Boxing, Photography and the Male Body
Luke Healey
Penalty Box Theatricals: Simulation, Spectacle and Photography in Professional Soccer
Papers will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Professor Stephen Connor (Cambridge) author of A Philosophy of Sport (Reaktion 2011).

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