Alternative Worlds

A retrospective of the last 111 years

Call for papers/Art Presentations

Seminar in Visual Culture 2011


Deadline for proposals: 13 Dec. 2O10
Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, Room ST 274
(School of Advanced Study, Stewart House,32 Russell Square, WClB SDN London)

This series of seminars acts as a forum for practising artists, researchers, curators, students, and others interested in visual culture who are invited to present, discuss and explore a given theme within the broad field of Visual Culture.

In an attempt to escape the doom and gloom of the economic crisis the theme for 2011 is 'Alternative Worlds'. The aim is to examine the dreams, plans and hopes, but also the nightmares and fears reflected in utopian thinking since 1900 in the Western hemisphere. What has become of all those possible worlds? How do they reflect their contemporary culture and society and what, if anything, do or can they mean for our present, or indeed, our future? What alternative worlds are engendered by our own times, by the world of 2011 itself? This is, hence not only a retrospective of past utopias and their after-lives but also an invitation to look towards our possible futures.

Looking backwards, we could revisit the Futurist utopia of a mechanical universe based on the principles of speed and technology, or look at the somewhat similar proposals of the American Technocratic Society for a world based on the laws of engineering. Or we could examine the repercussions of Hermann Sörgel's plan for Atlantropa, a merger of Europe and Africa created by damming the Strait of Gibraltar, meticulously worked out in the late 1920s and promoted by Sorgel until his death in 1952. Or we could look at the architectural utopias of Modernism, at Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin, or at GM's 1939 Futurama exhibit of the 'City of the Future' with its intricate congestion-free road systems.
We could look at the social housing projects of the 1950s and '60s - those that were built and those that were imagined. We could look at the many futures inspired by the space age, or at the alternative lives and societies envisaged in reaction to the Cold War and the nuclear threat. We could revisit the multiple Ballardian worlds or the various projects
for the future proposed by the architects and artists who contributed to "This is Tomorrow", the exhibition held at London's Whitechapel Gallery in 1956 and restaged in 2006 at Tate Britain, We could look at the alternative worlds inspired by the possibilities of robotics, cybernetics or genetics; or at virtual worlds, like Second Life or all those parallel lives made possible by social networking sites. We could look backwards and at the same time look forwards.

Contributions on any of the above topics or on other alternative worlds of the past and the present are invited from individuals working in the fields of art history, philosophy, literary, cultural and visual studies, fine arts, film and media studies, theatre, history, etc.

Artists are also invited to present new (and existing) work on the theme.

Please send proposals for art presentations (200 words plus images) or academic papers (200 words) to Ricarda Vidal: [log in to unmask] by 13 December 2O1O.

Please indicate which date you would prefer for your talk.

Dates and times:
Wednesday 26 Jan.2011,6.3Opm - 8.00pm, 
Wednesday 23 Feb.20011,6.30pm -8.00pm,
Wednesday 30 March 2011,6.30pm - 8.00pm,
Wednesday 27 April 2011,6.30pm- 8.00pm,
Wednesday 25 May 2011,6 .30pm- 8.00pm