Changing Platforms of Memory Practices. Technologies, User Generations and Amateur Media Dispositifs

Conference
10-12 September 2015
University of Groningen, the Netherlands

Keynote speakers:

• John Ellis, Professor of Media Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London
• Roger Odin, Professeur Émérite – Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3
• José van Dijck, Professor of Comparative Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Call for proposals:

We currently witness a process of rapid transition of mediated memory practices. Digital media platforms like YouTube enable the distribution of private audiovisual memories that differ radically from past amateur practices and media uses. The conference aims to grasp the technical, social and cultural dimensions and changes in the use of technologies of memory, such as home movies, home videos, sound recording and digital technologies. We propose to explore the complex relationship between media technologies, user generations, and mediated memory practices from both a contemporary and long term historical perspective. Papers might focus on the operationalization of concepts of, e.g. dispositif, user generations, media archaeology, socio-technical ensembles or media ecologies.

Proposals may include the following topics:

• The relationship between media technologies and memory practices
• The relationship between the materiality of media technologies, their mediated content, and use within different socio-historical contexts
• Moments of transitions from film to video, or video to digital media practices
• Histories of appropriation, domestication and democratization of amateur media technologies
• The co-construction of users and amateur media technology
• Role of age, gender and place in the construction of user identities and generational memory practices
• “Analogue” versus “digital” generations
• Rethinking the digital and analogue in “do it yourself” cultural productions
• Amateur media and concepts of intermediality, media ecology and media ensembles
• Experimental media archaeology approaches towards technologies of memories
• Private memories in a re-mix digital culture
• Different roles of users in the development of amateur media landscapes
• Historical and contemporary conceptualizations of ‘amateurs’, ‘experts’, ‘hobbyists’, ‘users’, ‘produsers’, ‘prosumers’
• Network memory cultures
• Social media and the relationship between the ‘private’ and the ‘public’

During the conference scholarly debate will be combined with media-archeological experiments and special screenings on and with home movies, home videos and digital media.

Submissions:

We invite you to submit a 400-500 word abstract for a 20 minutes presentation, including a short biography and contact details at:changingplatformsconference@gmail.com.

Deadline for submission: March 30th, 2015. Confirmation will follow shortly thereafter (May, 2015). A selection of papers will be submitted for a peer-reviewed edited volume.
Conference fee: regular 100 euro, PhD & MA/BA students: 50 euro.
About the conference organizers:

Conference committee:
Prof. dr. Andreas Fickers (University of Luxembourg), dr. Jo Wachelder (Maastricht University), dr. Susan Aasman (University of Groningen), Tom Slootweg MA (University of Groningen), Tim van der Heijden MA (Maastricht University).

The conference is supported by NWO, ICOG (RUG) and the University of Luxembourg and is related to “Changing Platforms of Ritualized Memory Practices. The Cultural Dynamics of Home Movies”, a collaborative research-project of the University of Groningen, Maastricht University and the University of Luxembourg.

See for more information: https://homemoviesproject.wordpress.com/