Annual conference of the Association of American Geographers - Las Vegas
March 22-27, 2009
Call for papers: Landscapes of Illumination
Session organisers: Tim Edensor and Steve Millington (Manchester
Metropolitan University)
Architects and urban planners have long recognised how electric lighting
possesses unique properties in its power to transform the meanings and
identities of space and place. Structures and surfaces which appear fixed by
day are rendered mutable and enchanted spaces by night through the
production of shadow, glow, glare, reflection and shimmer. Illumination thus
transforms the experience of place, providing a contrast with the normative
apprehension of places at night and during daylight. Yet although public and
private outdoor electric lighting are familiar adornments found in towns and
cities across the world, artificial illumination remains a neglected area of
study in geography, and the social and cultural meanings, practices and
values associated with illumination in the city remain largely unexplored.
How does illumination transform the sensory apprehension of place and
produce affect, for instance by producing a sense of otherness, carnival and
festivity? By exploring the shifting iconography, styles and design of
electric lighting over time and space, geographers may gain further insight
in to how artificial lights are valued and contested. Further investigation
into the immaterial and affectual qualities of electric lighting may also
raise questions about the nature of the urban experience and the development
of the city (Gilbert 2000; McGuire, 2004; Shivelbusch, 1998). This Call for
Papers, therefore, aims to broadly explore how illumination is able to
produce diverse modern urban experiences, by inviting an interdisciplinary
range of papers on the following themes:
- The affectual, emotional and sensory capacities of spaces of urban
illumination
- The design, materialities and assemblages of urban lighting and
unilluminated material absences
- The ways in which cultural tastes, aesthetics and values are expressed
through the consumption and production of illumination, and related
contestations over taste and the aesthetic worth of urban lighting.
- The diverse cultural meanings and uses of illumination
- The politics of luminescence – for instance, in discourses about the
environmental impact of urban lighting and attempts to reclaim the night sky
- The potential and use of illumination and urban regeneration strategies,
in the production of spectacle, place marketing, and the development of the
night time urban economy
- Artistic and creative interventions through the use of electric outdoor
urban lighting
- The symbolic and practical use of artificial light in inscribing power
through the ordering and control of urban nightscapes
- The temporal effects of urban lighting through rhythmic, automated
deployment and in contradistinction, the temporary and spontaneous use of
lighting. The seasonal and festive uses of artificial light
Please send abstracts or expressions of interest to Dr Steve Millington -
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AAG Guidlines on how to formally Submit an Abstract
Log-in to the AAG site using your AAG ID. (www.aag.org)
Click the “Submit/Edit Abstracts & Sessions for 2009 Annual Meeting” link.
Click on the “New Abstract” button and follow the directions to complete the
online form.
You will then receive an e-mail message to confirm your abstract was
submitted, and a Program Identification Number (PIN).
Please forward your PIN to [log in to unmask]
Please note that the final date for AAG registration is October 16th.
(apologies for cross-posting)
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