Visualist 2012: International Congress on Visual Culture: New Approaches in Communication, Arts and Design: Digitalization

The commencement of the digital age along with the rapid development of information technologies in the 21st century has led it to be defined as the age of information, where the boundaries between place and time no longer exist. It has become increasingly difficult to define what McLuhan has coined as the “global village”, a village based on visual culture where cultural structures are founded on visuality, and constructed through differing codes. In other words, despite the fact that images, which are the most important carriers of visual culture, can transcend all kinds of barriers, individuals living in different cultures and societies perceive and understand these images in completely distinctive ways. Furthermore, it is important to ask the question of whether the process of digitalization brings along with it “visuality”, “artificiality”, “loneliness”.

The term visual culture no doubt includes fashion, painting, textile, sculpture, all kinds of architecture, industrial and graphic design, advertising, popular culture, photograph, and mass media tools such as film, and television, as well as other products such as computer games, webpages, and newspaper and magazine design. So how are the messages created in these areas perceived? In terms of visual culture, what are the good and bad aspects of “digitalization”? How is society influenced by the “change”, “transformation” and “conversion” occurring in communication? Do McLuhan’s “technological determinism”, the “hyperreality” and the notion that all images  morph into the imaginary of Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation”, M. Castells concept of “network society” and the now very popular term of “social media” have anything in common? If we look at it more generally, what are the new approaches that have emerged in the components of visual culture – communication, art and design – due to the process of digitalization?

Visualist 2012 (International Congress on Visual Culture: New Approaches in Communication, Arts and Design: Digitalization) will take place from March 7th to March 9th 2012. The Congress will bring together academics and professionals coming from different fields to discuss their differing point of views on these questions related to “Visual Culture” while referring to “digitalization”.

Importatnt Dates

Abstract Submission Deadline:       2 September 2011
Abstract Approval Deadline:                 31 October 2011
Full Paper Submission Deadline:         6 January 2012
Congress Program Announcement: 17 February 2012
Congress Dates:                                       7-9 March 2012