Source
http://forschung.univie.ac.at/en/portal/initiativkollegs/i036/
Senses, Technology, Mise-en-Scene: Media and Perception
Funding: 10 Positions
Begin: Fall 2007
Abstract:
The proposed IK “Senses, Technology, Mise-en-Scene: Media and
Perception” aims to generate PhD theses analysing interrelations between
sensory perception, technology, and media mise-en-scenes. Three research
areas form the interdisciplinary framework for the theoretical and
historical analyses of mediaconstructed perception processes.
(1) Transformation of the senses: The cognitive process of perception is
closely linked with the specific situation and context of what is
perceived and the perceiver’s physiological conditions, their
experience, biographical, historical, and cultural situatedness, and
emotional constitution. In cultural studies, perception
becomes an important phenomenon when it goes beyond the everyday
processing of sensory inputs, for example, when we focus on the
reception of cultural artifacts. Thus, congruent to analyzing modes of
perception, a study of the senses is necessary, of the relationship
between embodiment, cognition, and technologies and the historical
embeddedness of cultural acts and artistic production. Reception hereby
becomes a main focus of cultural research. Our aim is to construct a
framework that enables investigating simultaneities arising in media
transformations and transformations of the senses. Research projects will
concentrate on historical and theoretical aspects of these
transformations, as well as the status of technical apparatus and the
sensory experience.
(2) Technology and the arts: Technical tools to focalize perception (or
the production of artificial sensory impressions) have been developed
throughout history. However, these tools have attained great importance
especially in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in close
conjunction with social processes of modernization. The aesthetic realm
is closely linked with available and chosen production techniques and
reproduction technologies. Historical interdependency of technical
innovation and artistic representation, the
characteristics of media perception, shifting of borders between human
and machine, and producing the spectacular are all aspects that will be
analyzed within the framework of the PhD program. Analysis will comprise
approaches from cultural studies and art history, and also rely on
insight from the theory of cognition, history of technology, and media
philosophy.
(3) Constructed perception: A consideration of media must necessarily
include their audiences, their immediate and virtual presences, and
their perception. The audience’s perception is shaped, staged, framed,
mediated, and constructed within a specifically medialized
mise-en-scene. Communication through the arts
and media has the potential to alienate, open up, and sharpen everyday
perception and thus contribute to producing a surplus of meaning. The
tense relationships of automation and de-automation, technical and
corporeal sensuality, social dynamics and ruptured perception processes,
and of political performativity and
artistic alienation present key challenges—for society and for science.
Tackling these issues demands an integrated perspective and the
innovative potential of young researchers.
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Salvatore Scifo
Communications,
MeCCSA Postgraduate Network
Communication and Media Research Institute
School of Media, Arts & Design
University of Westminster
Watford Road, Northwick Park
Harrow
HA1 3TP
MeCCSA Postgraduate Network
http://www.meccsa.org.uk/pgn/
