SPOTLIGHT Seminar
Staring at People. Interdisciplinarity and ambiguity of playing with the visibility of humans in cities
16 September 2024, UNATC – Multifunctionala (Str. Tudor Arghezi, 3b), Bucharest, Romania
Organizers: UNATC & University of Opole (Poland)
Partners: University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), New Europe College (Fundatia Noua Europa), HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences (Hungary)
Moderators: dr. Michał Wanke, UO, dr. Anna Vlad, UNATC
Background
SPOTLIGHT Summer School* will be held in Bucharest, organized by the University of St. Gallen and co-hosted by New Europe College and UNATC (I. L. Caragiale National University of Theatre and Film) on 8–15 September 2024. This is the third edition of SPOTLIGHT, which deals with audiovisual capturing of social phenomena in urban spaces in Central and Eastern Europe, such as identity of place (Opole, Poland in 2022), migration and diversity (Józsefváros, Budapest, Hungary in 2023) and architecture and city dwelling (Bucharest, Romania in 2024). Co-organized interdisciplinarily between visual anthropology, human geography, sociology and documentary filmmaking, it offers an immersive experience for the participating students from all over Europe.
All seminar topics stem from the practice of doing visual art or conducting visual research with human beings in cities. This intersection is blurry as it brings together the means of production and the end product in a rapidly changing environment. Because visual research is meant to be seen, issues of representation, anonymity and ethics are even more salient. Insert urban space and architecture, the foci of the SPOTLIGHT summer school, and many fascinating issues unfold in the process: when is it justified to use cameras in public spaces and how is consent managed? What particular knowledge can audio-visual methods contribute to the exploration of the manifold use/interpretation/appropriation of space? Is visibility in the urban fabric a blessing or a curse – considering the needs of activism in the city but also the desire not to stand out in cases of squatting, evictions or discrimination? How can we cope with the risk of misrepresentation?
The seminar, thus, has an ambition to discuss the following: interdisciplinarity of arts, filmmaking and social science; visibility in the city; sociability of the architectural forms; ethics and quality of visual research.
* SPOTLIGHT. Audiovisual capturing of dynamics of place attachment and identity in Central and Eastern Europe. Summer school on documentary filmmaking in social sciences
Programme
09:15 Registration and build up
09:20 Welcome address from the Rector of UNATC, prof. Liviu Lucaci
09:30 Welcome (Ana Vlad, Michał Wanke)
09:45 Spotlight Summer School’ as a laboratory of the field research (Karina Gaibulina, University of Opole, Poland)
Quality and ethics of visual research
moderator Clara Kleininger
10:05 [online] Film-based methods and ethics in studying geographies of migration in the city, (Paul Hummel, Elisabeth Sommerlad, Veronika Cummings, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany)
10:25 [online] How to make arts-based (audiovisual) collaborative projects equal, fair and safe for all? (Katarzyna Kärkkäinen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland)
10:45 discussion
11:00 coffee pause
Visibility of city dwelling
moderator Karina Gaibulina
11:15 The Weight of 2 Million Walls: A Filmmaker’s Challenge to Hear Romania’s Elderly Behind the Silence of Concrete (Georgia Mihalcea, National University of Theatre and Cinema, Bucharest, Romania)
11:25 “Shall we do it under the walnut tree?”: conducting visual research about place attachment with older adult women in Transcarpathia, Ukraine (Ágnes Erőss, HUN-REN RCAES Geographical Institute, Budapest)
Visibility of city dwelling (continued)
moderator Michał Wanke
11:45 Place-making in a visual multispecies ethnography: a sensory exploration of the Chacahua lagoon, Mexico (Clara Kleininger, University of Opole, Poland)
12:05 Holistic Cities: Future Habitats designed for Multiple Species (Ioana Mischie, National University of Theatre and Cinema, Bucharest, Romania)
12:25 discussion
12:45 coffee pause
Sociability of architecture
moderator Ágnes Erőss
13:00 Urban presence in amateur film productions: overview and case study (Liri Chapelan, National University of Theatre and Cinema, Bucharest, Romania)
13:20 From “Love to Hate” – The History of the Friendship of Nations Monument. Complex in Kyiv, Ukraine Nataliya Machalina (University of Toronto, Canada)
13:45 discussion
Quality and ethics of visual research (continued)
moderator Michał Wanke
14:00 [online] Epistemologies are at odds and ends: Photovoice as resistance (Andya Paz, Central European University, Vienna, Austria)
14:20 [online] Visual memories and identities through the city: from the heart of the researcher in Palermo (Carmen Carmona, University of Valencia, Spain)
14:40 discussion
14.50 closing remarks