Event overview
The conference #Neoliberation taking place at Goldsmiths, University of London, will set the stage for a conversation regarding concepts such as self, subjectivity, identity and emancipation within a 21st-century media setting.
Is liberation passé? Or has liberation, in light of the potentialities offered by a spectrum of new media, gained new relevance as a concept and ideal - in other words, are we seeing the emergence of a “neoliberation”? The proliferation of new media primarily, but not exclusively, conditioned by the popularity and spread of the internet, has fundamentally changed the world in which we are situated when it comes to social relations, community, politics and the forming of the self. This new landscape, which we, as a global community, are now a part of, conditions and enables our thinking about questions concerning the self, identity and emancipation.
How do language, media and technology bring about contemporary understandings of who we are? What, indeed, is new about “new media” - if anything at all? How does the proliferation of media interact with a neoliberal capitalist economy and, given this context, how can we conceive of emancipation? What political potentialities are contained in new media, and how do they express themselves (for example in feminist and postcolonial movements)? In other words, is liberation still, or again, possible, or is this “neoliberation” simply a myth recounted by a curated neoliberal self?
--- PROGRAMME ---
Tuesday, 9 June 2015 at Professor Stuart Hall Building, LG02:
09.00 – 09.30: Coffee & Welcome
09.30 – 11.00: Panel I: (Self-)Surveillance and Models of Life
11.00 – 11.15: Coffee break
11.15 – 12.45: Keynote by Joanna Zylinska, Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths: 'Neoliberation of the Eye/I: Nonhuman Vision'
12.45 – 13.45: Lunch break
13.45 – 15.15: Keynote by Angela McRobbie, Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths: 'Unpacking the Politics of the Creative Industries'
15.15 – 15.45: Coffee break
15:45 – 17.15: Panel II: Participation and Emancipation in Visual Cultures
Wednesday, 10 June 2015 at Professor Stuart Hall Building, LG01:
09.00 – 09.15: Coffee & Welcome
09.15 – 10.45: Panel III: Power and Politics in New Spaces
10.45 – 11.00: Coffee break
11.00 – 12.30: Keynote by Matthew Fuller, Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths: 'Black Sites & Transparency Layers'
12.30 – 13.30: Lunch break
13.30 – 15.00: Panel IV: Neoliberal Narcissus: Self-representation and Self-branding
15.00 – 15.15: Coffee break
15.15 – 16.00: Performance lecture by Alessandra Meloni (Goldsmiths) and Clara Miranda Scherffig (Freie Universität Berlin): Copycats: Reproduce (your)self!
16.00 – 18.30: Break
18.30 – 21.45: Arts Night at The Albany (15 min walk from Goldsmiths) followed by reception
--- PANEL DESCRIPTIONS ---
Panel I: (Self-)Surveillance and Models of Life
You are being watched, not least by yourself: state-sponsored initiatives and the willing use of tracking devices all share the fact that they show life as data. Technological models of the self, their implications for subjectivity and their political significance will be discussed.
Panelists:
- Yasemin Keskintepe (MA student), Goldsmiths: ‘Video Surveillance Imperatives’
- Ramon Amaro (PhD candidate), Goldsmiths: ‘Preemptive Citizenship: Crime Predictions and Statistical Interventions in Racialized Ecologies’
- James Dyer (PhD candidate), University of Huddersfield: 'A Genealogy of Quantifying Devices'
Panel II: Participation and Emancipation in Visual Cultures
From labour in new media to digital cinema to visual creativity in TV entrepreneurialism: this panel offers perspectives on participation and emancipation by analyzing visual cultures in their relation to neoliberal structures.
Panelists:
- Prof. James Hay, University of Illinois: ‘Following Financial Crisis: Indebtedness in & to the Entrepreneurial Game’
- Dr. Clive James Nwonka, Ravensbourne: ‘Open Cinema: Testing Participatory Digital Cinema as an Amplifier of Cultural and Social Capital’
- Nour El Safoury (MA student), King’s College: ‘Subjective Re-Assemblage: The Case of "Labour in a Single Shot" and the Question of Emancipation’
Panel III: Power and Politics in New Spaces
A look at contemporary practices of power and politics in new spaces for political change, such as online news portals and social media. Themes encompass the relation between individual and collective and the concept of liberation in the flow of political transformation.
Panelists:
- Dr. Steffen Krüger, Universitetet i Oslo: '“We Have Been Silenced”: The Imaginary Prohibition (Ahmed, 2008) and the Case of the PEGIDA Movement'
- Luca Serafini (PhD candidate), Goldsmiths: ‘“New Media” and “Neo-tribes”: The Self-liberation in Michel Maffesoli’s Theory’
- Maitrayee Basu (PhD candidate), Middlesex University: ‘Re-imagining Indian Journalistic Legitimacy and Public Space on Twitter’
Panel IV: Neoliberal Narcissus: Self-representation and Self-branding
Questions of self-representation through the use of social media, self-branding and selfies are at the centre of this panel. It will ask to what extent these practices are liberating or subjugating, with reference to the performative, the gendered and the embodied.
Panelists:
- Dr. Alessandro Gandini, Middlesex University: ‘Digital Work. The “Branded Freelancer” and the Rise of a Freelance Economy’
- Dr. Jamie Hakim, University of East Anglia: ‘The Spornosexual: Male Embodiment in Neoliberal Digital Culture’
- Dr. Begonia Enguix and Erick Gómez (PhD candidate), Universitat Oberta de Catalunya: ‘Liberating Selfies?’
- Jocelyn Murtell (PhD candidate), Leeds Metropolitan University: ‘But What Does the Selfie Do? Young Women on the Pleasures and Risks of Self-portraiture’
http://neoliberation.tumblr.com/
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Jun 2015 |
9:00am - 5:15pm PSH LG02 |
|
| 10 Jun 2015 |
9:00am - 4:00pm PSH LG01, plus Arts Night at the Albany from 6.30pm |
Accessibility
If you are attending an event and need the College to help with any mobility requirements you may have, please contact the event organiser in advance to ensure we can accommodate your needs.
