CALL FOR PAPERS
Submission Deadline: January 10, 2008
INTENDED TO PROVOKE: Social Action in Visual Culture
The Fifth Annual Visual Cultures Symposium
at George Mason University
Thursday, March 27, 2008
What happens when art is made as an intentionally political act?
This symposium addresses the use of art as a form of social action -resistance - intervention -
opposition. We seek to interrogate the ways in which shifts in our understanding of what
constitutes "art" are intertwined with social conditions and our will to change them.
Academic or creative work from scholars, students, artists and activists is encouraged. We
construe the term “art” broadly, in all of its contemporary meanings: from fine art in galleries and
museums to street performance and graffiti to mass media images.
INTENDED TO PROVOKE will be the fifth annual visual culture symposium at George Mason
University. Following in the tradition of the preceding symposia, INTENDED TO PROVOKE
will be an interdisciplinary, multimedia inquiry into issues relevant to the theme, and to visual
culture in general, from multiple perspectives to include faculty, graduate and undergraduate
work.
In past years our co-sponsors have included a diverse group of departments and programs at the
University, including programs in Cultural Studies, Film and Media Studies and Honors, and the
Departments of Art and Visual Technology, English, Art History and History, Sociology and
Anthropology, Philosophy, New Century College, and Women’s Studies.
Possible Panel ideas/themes include, but are not limited to:
Tactical/Digital Media
Performance Art: Infiltrating the Public
Graffiti: Art and Illegality
Art for Arts Sake: How Changing the Art World Makes a Social Statement
Political Images: Art in the Campaign
Music Videos as a Space for Promoting Change
Contestation: Immigration/Globalization Visualized
Community-based Art
Visual Culture and the Politics of Gender
EcoArt
How To Submit
Abstracts of no more than 300 words are due January 10, 2008, and should be submitted via
email to Ellen Gorman at [email protected]. All paper presentations will be no longer than 15
minutes, including accompanying visual images, and each panel will conclude with questions from
and dialogue with the audience.
Concurrent Juried Exhibition of Student Work
As in previous years, the symposium will be presented concurrently with a juried exhibition of
student work created in relation to a parallel theme. For more information, please download the
call for submissions at http://beauty.gmu.edu/visualcultures/
Symposium Organizers
Lynne M. Constantine
Associate Chair, Art and Visual Technology
Assistant Professor, Art and Visual Technology
Doctoral Candidate, Cultural Studies
George Mason University
[email protected]
Ellen Gorman
Doctoral Student, Cultural Studies, George Mason University
Lecturer, Georgetown University and Corcoran College of Art + Design
[email protected]
Tracy McLoone
Doctoral Candidate, Cultural Studies
Instructor, New Century College and Honors Program
George Mason University
[email protected]