Call for papers by 1 May 2023 for Documentary Futures International Symposium
In the second edition of the Documentary Futures international symposium, we address the state of the image and the rapidly altering landscape of photographic practice in the wake of the explosion and commercialisation of Artificial Intelligence. We explore what role artists, theorists and documentarians can assume within or against the architecture of machine learning at this critical juncture in human-machine development whilst exploring the implications of big data on photography and our shifting relationship to reality as affected by technical imagery.
The second aspect and panel of the symposium will seek to understand how we use documentary’s own shortcomings and blind spots in a world where fact rather than truth is debated. We discuss what methods are used by practitioners and researchers to embrace the faults, power dynamics and fictions inherent in their medium(s). In doing so we can look to engage in documentary’s speculative potential and function in imagining hopeful futures.
This one-day international online symposium is an eCDR research initiative, supported by the second-year students from the MA Documentary Photography course at The University of South Wales.
The presentations and discussions with key practitioners and thinkers across the two strands of this symposium build on the themes of the first Documentary Futures edition to further provide a crucial platform for critical thought and conversation around photography and the role of images makers, readers and consumers in an increasinelv oost-truth world.
Lisa Barnard
Athro cyswllt│Associate Professor
Arweinydd Rhaglen Ffotograffiaeth Ddogfennaeth MA│Programme Leader MA Documentary Photography
Cyfadran y Diwydiannau Creadigol │ Faculty of Creative Industries Prifysgol De Cymru│University of South Wales
ATRiuM 86-88 Heol Adam│ 86-88 Adams Street Caerdydd │Cardiff CF24 2FN
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