'Hand in Hand: Design History and Victorian Studies'

I'm delighted to have been invited as keynote speaker for the British Association for Victorian Studies annual conference at the Centre for Victorian Studies, at the University of Exeter, 29-31 August 2018. The conference theme is 'Victorian Patterns' which will no doubt be of interest to historians of all kinds, and especially my fellow design historians. My keynote talk is titled 'Hand in Hand: Design History and Victorian Studies'. 

Although industrialisation had gained momentum during the 17th and 18th centuries, it was during the C19th that the effects of the industrial revolution were most apparent throughout British society and culture. The successes of mass production in equipping a massively expanding Victorian population were accompanied by far-reaching failures ranging from inhumane labour conditions, and social inequality to compromised aesthetics and quality. These failings were lamented by the design reformers of the C19th in a relay race of aesthetic guardianship from A.W.N. Pugin, to John Ruskin, William Morris and his followers in the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetic Movements. This period is therefore hugely significant for the history of design, and for design history. (Indeed, industrialisation has been so central to the design historical project that those nations to have industrialised late, or little, have been neglected by design historians, who have preferred to focus on the first industrial nations, chiefly the UK, the USA, and Germany. This Western bias has only recently been challenged and addressed through efforts to internationalise design history.)

Design historians have much to learn from Victorian Studies, therefore, and vice versa. While Victorian Studies focuses on a period of study, and the various area studies explore geographical domains, design history is concerned with the history of design both as a practice and as a series of outputs. In using design to find out about the past, and in using various kinds of history to find out about design, design historians research inclusively across neighbouring fields including - in addition to Victorian Studies and area studies - heritage studies, material culture studies, cultural studies, the histories of technology, architecture, culture and craft, gender and women’s studies, and environmental humanities. Design history’s interface with some of these neighbouring fields has recently been considered, but the commonalities and distinctiveness of design history and Victorian Studies have yet to be comparatively explored.

In this talk, I will reflect on the methodological and historiographic implications of a comparative, or collaborative, approach to and through these sister fields using the case study of hand making and machine manufacture in the Victorian age. This is drawn from my current research on the hand in design history, including discourses on craft and mechanization, the Victorian design reformers, and modes of displaying industrial heritage, for publication in my forthcoming monograph The Hand Book (The MIT Press 2019). 

I am looking forward to the BAVS conference already. I hope to see you there. The call for papers is as follows:

Poster Designed by Marc Ricard

In Pursuit of Luxury conference 2017

The In Pursuit of Luxury conference 2017 revolves around luxury, sustainability and waste. We will ask: Is sustainable luxury attainable or is it an oxymoron?

We welcome debate on what Luxury means on individual, social and cultural levels. Can this be enhanced through consumption?, and if so how do we deal with materials in a way that aspires to zero environmental impact. The implications of circular economies, supply chains and a reassessment of the actual value of materials, are considered in the context of Luxury. Why for example, are diamonds more valuable than recycled plastic? Rarity is one answer, but perhaps there are others.

The 2017 conference provides a platform to examine and expand our understanding of luxury within the sustainable context. By inviting contributions from various disciplines, we aim at generating a lively debate on the past, present, and future of luxury. For the first time, we welcome submissions of Fashion Films that explore luxury through visual storytelling and look forward to including this engaging media as part of the conference.

Learn more about the themes and strands of the conference here: http://www.herts.ac.uk/in-pursuit-of-luxury/conferences/ipol-conference-2017/call-for-papers/themes-and-strands

The process for abstract submission is outlined at our website: http://www.herts.ac.uk/in-pursuit-of-luxury/conferences/ipol-conference-2017/call-for-papers/submission-of-abstract

Who
This event is a collaboration between The School of Creative Arts at the University of Hertfordshire, and Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

When and where
The conference is being held on 30 November and 1 December 2017 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Our conference programme will be available to download from our website soon: http://www.herts.ac.uk/in-pursuit-of-luxury/conferences/ipol-conference-2017

 

The 'Pursuit of Luxury' continues...

One of our colleagues in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Hertfordshire, Dr Shaun Borstrock, is working with TVAD research Dr Steven Adams to co-convene another conference as part of the 'In Pursuit of Luxury' project, with Dr Veronica Manlow, Associate Professor at Brooklyn College in the School of Business. It will be held on May 6 2016 in New York at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, 65 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016. The convenors will be joined on the steering commitee by Prof Eugenia Paulicelli of CUNY. The conference team has this week opened the Call for Papers.

The 'In Pursuit of Luxury' conference provides an opportunity for academia and industry to come together to discuss issues that have a key impact on the global luxury and luxury brand market. The conference provides a platform to examine and expand understanding of the concepts of luxury and to provide a refreshing context to the debates surrounding the subject. Dr Borstrock and fellow commentators aim to take a critical look at a range of issues, some well-established, others neglected. This provides a focus for the exploration of luxury's past, present and future. This year's theme is around commercial and academic perspectives on luxury.

The idea of luxury has secured a place in modern western culture as the term is part of common parlance. This conference will aim to explore the many issues and debates surrounding the idea of luxury. When and where did the concept of luxury emerge? What is its history? How does luxury relate to social class? Is luxury necessarily the preserve of the few and, if so, what are the qualifications to consume luxurious objects? How important is social status v the accumulation of money in luxury acquisition? How does an object or experience acquire luxury status? Is it through branding or high quality materials and craftsmanship? Is it possible to mass-produce luxury, and, if so, what are the ethical implications of this? In a global world of mass consumption, is luxurious consumption becoming politically and/or ethically suspect? Similarly, as the world's resources diminish, might we expect the political implications of conspicuous consumption to take on greater resonance? And, not least, what is the future of luxury in a world beset with financial turmoil? All of these questions stack up to make for a subject of pressing concern and febrile debate.

For the Second International 'In Pursuit of Luxury' conference we will consider work within the field of luxury which encompasses established firms with a long heritage, from conglomerates to small independent firms, to "new" luxury, and emerging models with innovative practices. How is the industry structured with respect to work, what hierarchies are in place, and how do people in a variety of positions from professional to service and labour classifications experience their day to day reality? What is it like to work behind the scenes in ateliers, factories, in facilities, and in support functions such as technology and research? How do those who work on the front lines with the public perform their roles and how do they relate to corporate directives?

The irony of the "democratization" of luxury is subject to analysis as is the mythologisation of labour, upheld by marketing, media and public relations where ground level operations in stores are spectacularised while production, which happens a layer below the surface, is obscured. It is at the level of production where artisans practice their craft and where others perform labour. It is here that costs may be cut the most, workers deskilled and labour subject to the logic of scientific management. It is also the point at which artisans and factory workers alike may be integrated into the culture and philosophy of the company in a way that enriches their lives.

How sustainable is a luxury model dictated to by fashion and business, which requires ever larger segments of the global population to consume and produce luxury, in faster cycles? What are the costs of continuing along this trajectory, and indeed what are the forces that create and fulfil the desire for luxury, and that uphold its existence in a variety of incarnations along a continuum stretching from the bespoke and rarefied to "new" luxury?

To submit an abstract, visit the project website at http://www.herts.ac.uk/in-pursuit-of-luxury/conference-2015/abstract-submission. For abstract submission enquiries please email us at: abstracts@inpursuitofluxury.com

For general enquiries, please email us at: info@inpursuitofluxury.com

For sponsorship information please contact Nicholas Thomas at: n.thomas9@herts.ac.uk

More information is available on the project website http://www.herts.ac.uk/in-pursuit-of-luxury

 

The Comic Electric: A Digital Comics Symposium

   

Call for Participation

Led by renowned comic writers Leah and Alan Moore, The Electricomics project launched in May 2014 with funding from The Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. Now, as the project nears the conclusion of its initial research and development stage, we seek to establish a new academic symposium through which to share our findings and expand discussion and debate around the field of digital comics research.

The Comic Electric: A Digital Comics Symposium will be held at The University of Hertfordshire on Wednesday 14^th October 2015. As part of this symposium participants are sought to present papers across a wide range of topics that relate to comics scholarship and digital media. Appropriate subject areas include:

• New and emergent digital comic forms and technologies.
• Changes to the underlying structures of the form as a result of digital mediation.
• Crossovers, adaptation and hybridisation between comics and other digital media.
• Acts of reading and the impact of digital mediation.
• Aesthetic and literary analysis of digital comic narratives.
• Digital distribution, changes in the industry and the threat of piracy.
• Webcomics, widening readerships, minority voices and fan cultures.
• Multimodality and comics relationship with larger transmedia narratives.

Other areas relevant to the study of digital comics will also be considered. Abstracts of no more than 300 words for papers of 20 minutes in length should be submitted via e-mail to Daniel Merlin Goodbrey and Alison Gazzard at electric@e-merl.com by Monday 27th July 2015. If you have any questions about the symposium or need clarification on any aspect of this call for participation, please also contact us via the above e-mail address.

 

About Electricomics

The focus of the Electricomics project has been the creation of a new digital comic anthology app and an open source toolkit for the creation of digital comics. Towards this goal, the project has examined how the language, tropes and production processes of traditional comics are impacted by digital technologies. Our research has also explored how an easy to use and openly available toolset might facilitate content creation both in the comics sector and amongst a wider arts community.

Electricomics is collaborative project between arts, technology and research partners. Arts partner Orphans of The Storm was founded by comic writer Alan Moore and film director and producer Mitch Jenkins. Technology partner Ocasta studios are responsible for the creation of the Electricomics app and comic creation toolset. The research partners on the project are Alison Gazzard from the London Knowledge Lab at the UCL Institute of Education and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey from the University of Hertfordshire’s School of Creative Arts.

The Comic Electric is a joint symposium between three of the School of Creative Art’s research groups; TVAD (Theorising Visual Arts and Design), G+VERL (Games and Visual Effects Research Lab) and The Media Research Group. It is held in conjunction with the DARE (Digital Arts Research Education) research centre at the UCL Institute of Education.

 

About the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts

The Digital R&D fund for the Arts is a £7 million fund to support collaboration between organisations with arts projects, technology providers, and researchers. It is a partnership between Arts Council England (www.artscouncil.org.uk), Arts and Humanities Research Council (www.ahrc.ac.uk) and Nesta (www.nesta.org.uk).

We want to see projects that use digital technology to enhance audience reach and/or develop new business models for the arts sector. With a dedicated researcher or research team as part of the three-way collaboration, learning from the project can be captured and disseminated to the wider arts sector. Every project needs to identify a particular question or problem that can be tested. Importantly this question needs to generate knowledge for other arts organisations that they can apply to their own digital strategies.

BETWEEN TEXTS AND CITIES - CALL FOR PAPERS

BETWEEN TEXTS AND CITIES

A themed edition of Writing Visual Culture

CALL FOR PAPERS

Writing Visual Culture is the journal of the TVAD research group. It publishes original double-blind peer-reviewed open access scholarship on all aspects of visual culture, spanning art, design and media. We are seeking submissions for a new themed edition exploring the relationships between texts and urban spaces in contemporary society.

The urban spaces with which this edition is concerned are those of the contemporary, networked cities that have emerged since the crises of Capitalism of the 1970s. These contemporary networked cities are inseparable from texts –

-                          from the ideologies that underpin their physical structure, their many organisms, their policies and functioning;

-                          from the production, consumption, and circulation of information and data, which have turned cities into environments that require to be explored through their physical presence, as technological artefacts, as textual objects, and as symbolic entities;

-                          from dissenting discourses that resist and challenge the transformations wrought by processes of Globalisation.

The aim of this themed edition is to reflect on ways of producing, reproducing, consuming, and actuating the urban; ways that approach experience and interpretation of the urban not as discrete activities, but as inseparable from one another.

We welcome submissions guided by, but not limited to, the following topics:

·         Analyses of representations (fictional, cartographic, theoretical) of urban spaces and of the ‘urban experience’;

·         The influence of New Media, Big Data, and imaging technologies in the understanding of, and action within cities;

·         Ideal cities, utopias, dystopias, heterotopias;

·         Political and economic ideologies and urban spaces;

·         Arts in the city;

·         Textual interventions in urban spaces (graffiti, advertising, etc.).

Abstracts of 200 words for papers of 3000-6000 words should be submitted via email to Daniel Marques Sampaio (d.marques-sampaio@herts.ac.uk)  and Michael Heilgemeir (m.heilgemeir@herts.ac.uk) by Monday 1^st September 2014.

Abstracts should make clear the connection between the proposed paper and the theme of the journal issue.

Completed papers must be original and not have been published previously or accepted for publication elsewhere, and be ready to be submitted in late November 2014.

We welcome also expressions of interest for visual contributions (e.g. videos, artworks, etc.), as the journal issue is part of a project that will include an exhibition, the details of which will be published in due course. 

Deadline for submission of 200-word abstracts	MONDAY 1st SEPTEMBER 2014
Deadline for submission of completed papers	FRIDAY 28th NOVEMBER 2014
Publication	Mid-2015

Writing Visual Culture: /https://journals.stca.herts.ac.uk/

TVAD: http://www.herts.ac.uk/research/ssahri/research-areas/art-design/tvad-theorising-visual-art-and-design.html

TVAD Blog: http://tvad-uh.blogspot.co.uk/

CFP: Deception

1st Global Conference: Deception (July 2014: Mansfield College, Oxford)

CFP deadline: 14 February, 2014

We have entered a ‘post-truth era’, in which, Daniel J. Boorstin notes, ‘believability’ has become an acceptable substitute for ‘truth’, and ‘manifold deceptions of our culture’ are difficult to separate from ‘its few enduring truths’. In this era, communities and individuals may feel routinely duped, cheated or betrayed. Though truth may be considered intrinsically valuable, deception may sometimes be useful or necessary. Sometimes there is pleasure in the spectacle of deception.

Deception is not limited to human activity. It is also practiced by animals, plants, diseases, and machines. It is an issue that transcends disciplines, affecting communities, individuals and objects

This inter-disciplinary conference will address artefacts and practices that challenge truthfulness, authenticity or reliability. Deception is practiced in many forms, affecting societies and individuals. It may be a vital survival tool, a means of gaining unfair advantage, or a pleasurable spectacle. This conference invites delegates to explore how deception is manifested in their discipline, or how multi-disciplinary notions of deception affect their field. Proposals for papers and presentations are invited on topics related to, but not limited to:

False Identities:
- disguises
- costumes and masquerade
- aliases and pseudonyms
- anonymity

Illusions:
- virtual reality and simulated worlds
- trompe l’oeil, and optical or perceptual illusions
- theatrical and dramatic illusions
- mirrors and architectural illusions
- camouflage

Fakes and Forgeries:
- false signs of authenticity
- the lives and practices of forgers
- hoaxes
- red herrings and decoys

Betrayal:
- whistleblowers and defectors
- trust and distrust
- infidelity
- fractured expectations

Dishonest Media:
- photo-manipulation and retouching
- ‘black’ propaganda
- plagiarism
- misrepresentation

Possible examples of some of the above are seen in, but not limited to: The V&A’s recent ‘Fakes and Forgeries’ exhibition, featuring the collected works of forger Shaun Greenhalgh/ Manipulation of photographs by North Korean government agencies/ Adult chat-room users masquerading as children (and sometimes posing as a different gender)/ The ‘Geezer Bandit’, an apparently elderly gentleman who robbed 16 banks in California and was later revealed as a much younger man wearing a prosthetic mask/ J.K.Rowling’s use of a pseudonym for her novel ‘Cukoo’s Calling’.

The Steering Group invites proposals for pre-formed panels, as well as individual papers.

What to Send
Proposals will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word a proposals should be submitted by Friday 14th February 2014. If a proposal is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 16th May 2014. Proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Deception 1 Proposal Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Barbara Brownie: b.k.1.brownie@herts.ac.uk
Rob Fisher: decep1@inter-disciplinary.net

All proposals accepted for and presented at the conference must be in English and will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected proposals may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.

For further details of the conference, please visit:

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/hostility-and-violence/deception/call-for-presentations/

Texts / Cities - Call for Papers

TEXTS / CITIEs: from the 1970s to the present

A one-day seminar at the TVAD Research Group, University of Hertfordshire

Thursday January 23^rd, 2014

Convened by Dr. Daniel Marques Sampaio and Mr. Michael Heilgemeir, University of Hertfordshire

This seminar will explore relationships between texts and urban spaces in contemporary culture and society. The aim is to bring together scholars within an interdisciplinary range of art, design, and media practices to examine, analyse and interpret the complexities of those relationships, looking at the movement from text to urban space and back.

Cities have often been compared to palimpsests, their streets, buildings, and subways pleated, crumpled, written and rewritten over and over again: as material texts, poïesis. What is at stake in this conflation of city and text? Can the city be read, does it indeed operate like a text? How do urban spaces relate to artistic, political, or economic texts and ideologies, and vice versa? What transformations occur between the designing and imaging of urban spaces, and the building and eventual inhabiting of those spaces? How do the technologies employed in designing and imaging architectural and urban spaces (computer modelling and simulation, CGI renderings of future buildings, etc.) contribute to the ‘idea’ or representations of a city? In what ways can data and imaging influence understanding of, and policies within cities?

These are some of the questions we invite; further topics could include but are not limited to:

• Analyses of representations (fictional, cartographic, theoretical) of urban spaces and of the ‘urban experience’;
• New media, Big Data, imaging technology, and daily life in contemporary cities;
• Ideal cities, utopias, dystopias, heterotopias;
• Political and economic ideologies and urban spaces;
• Arts in the city;
• Textual interventions in urban spaces (graffiti, advertising, etc.).

DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 13^th, 2013

To submit a proposal for a 20-minute paper, please send an abstract of 300 words, five key words, contact details, affiliation (if any), and a short biographical note, to: Dr. Daniel Marques Sampaio d.marques-sampaio@herts.ac.uk and Mr. Michael Heilgemeir m.heilgemeir@herts.ac.uk.

Selected papers will be presented at the seminar and may be included in a planned peer-reviewed issue of the journal Writing Visual Culture. 

Writing Visual Culture: Digital Comics - Call for papers

Writing Visual Culture is the open access, double-blind peer-reviewed journal of the TVAD Research Group. The journal's focus is the relationship between text, narrative and image. We are currently seeking submissions for a new themed edition examining the world of digital comics.

The medium of comics is undergoing a period of transition as the popular mode of creation, distribution and consumption shifts from print to digital display. This is a transition that has been underway since before the general adoption of the World Wide Web and recent advances in portable digital display has only served to accelerate the pace of this change.

Digital comic pioneers have pushed at the boundaries of the medium and explored the possibilities offered by the inherent interactivity of the medium and the multimodality of computing devices. Today, smart phones and tablet computers provide a single platform of consumption on which comics, film, animation, games and other interactive visual media are equally at home. Now as comics gradually leave behind the tropes and trappings of print and embrace those of the screen, we also see the emergence of new hybrid forms that appropriate tropes from other screen-based media.

Against this background, papers focused towards the following areas would sit well within our themed edition of Writing Visual Culture:

•    New and emergent digital comic forms and technologies.
•    Changes to the underlying structures of the form as a result of digital mediation.
•    Crossovers, adaptation and hybridisation between comics and videogames.
•    Motion comics and animated adaptations of the form.
•    Acts of reading and the impact of digital mediation.
•    Aesthetic and Literary analysis of digital comic narratives.
•    Digital distribution, changes in the industry and the threat of piracy.
•    Webcomics, widening readerships, minority voices and fan cultures.
•    Multimodality and comics relationship with larger transmedia narratives.

Although other areas relevant to the study of digital comics will also be considered.

Abstracts of 200 words for papers of 3000 to 6000 words should be submitted via e-mail to Daniel Merlin Goodbrey at wvc@e-merl.com by Monday 19th August. Abstracts should specify the research question or issue that you are addressing and make clear the connection between your paper and the Digital Comics theme. Proposed papers must be original and not have been published already or accepted for publication elsewhere.