HOW TO SEE THE WORLD? CONFERENCE

HOW TO SEE THE WORLD? - CONFERENCE  organized by  Budapest Metropolitan University Institute of Art and Design Theory   

7th -8th September, 2023   

 “A visual culture is not simply the total amount of what has been made to be seen, such as paintings or films. A visual culture is the relation between what is visible and the names that we give to what is seen. It also involves what is invisible or kept out of sight. In short, we don’t simply see what there is to see and call it a visual culture. Rather, we assemble a world-view that is consistent with what we know and have already experienced.”  

 (Nicholas Mirzoeff: How to See the World)  

 Our contemporary society is dominated by visual culture, which has its undeniable advantages, but also some problematic benefits. With the decline of lexical culture, oral and written content and methods are being replaced by visual ones, which in turn remain largely unreflected in the ever-accelerating world of visual communication.   

We are increasingly immersed in the world of images, but can we really communicate in images? Is the reception and transmission of images conscious? Digital culture, while giving space to the creation of content, transforms the inherently active members of societies and communities into users, often passive recipients, The passivity of the viewer and the lack of reflection on the phenomenon of passivity is an undeniable problem. We need to redefine the meaning of active inclusion, the role of activity and activism - in the hope of creating a potentially community-building, participatory society.  

The quote by Nicholas Mirzoeff, chosen as a motto, draws attention to the social lack of reflection in visual culture, calling for the development of our ways of seeing, with a strong educational content. In this spirit, we believe it is important to explore the possibilities of spectator engagement. Can the viewer be moved from the passive position of spectator, can the viewer be activated?  What ways does visuality offer for making connections, maintaining connections - ultimately: creating and sustaining communities? In what ways can our seeing be developed and what role does education play in this process?  

The issues and problems of visuality and spectator activity are highlighted in a very specific area, namely the rethinking of the relationship between visuality and documentality. For us, therefore, the issues raised by contemporary visual culture crystallise in the documentary.  

The different sessions of the conference will focus on the relevance and potential applications of document and documentation in the 21st century. The different sessions are organised around these themes. We are interested in the ways in which the topic can be addressed in higher education, particularly in art education, in terms of educational content and methodology. Another key organisational principle of the conference is to emphasise the importance of co-creative practices in contemporary universities. What links the two themes is our belief that working with documents provides an excellent opportunity to develop co-creative forms of teaching in higher education. What and how do we see? What do we need to see?  

The basic idea is that documentaries are high quality digital content with significant educational value and social relevance. They can provide added value to learning and teaching practices in various disciplines, including art, psychology, social sciences and pedagogy. However, the impact of documentaries tends to remain unduly limited, usually reaching very small audiences. As a result, their potential for innovation in education is not fully exploited. This is due to a lack of knowledge and skills in teaching with documentaries and a lack of links between documentary filmmakers and higher education teachers. In order to fully exploit the potential of documentaries and maximise their impact on society, there is a growing need to share methodological know-how on how to better integrate documentaries into different educational curricula and to develop cooperation between the film industry, higher education institutions and NGOs.  

Special emphasis will be placed on Section 6, as we believe that the integration of documentaries in all the themes of the sections can be very useful. We are interested to see what educational potential it offers and why it could be used to present content in higher education programs that could raise awareness of the present time.  

 REGISTRATION  

PROGRAM  

The conference offers one lecture and one section in English (the keynote lecture on Thursday and Section 6 on Friday) 

THURSDAY, 7th SEPTEMBER 

 9.00-10.00 KEYNOTE LECTURE / KEYNOTE NYITÓELŐADÁS (in English)  

• Dr. Aline Caillet: A SPECIFIC DOCUMENTARY VIEW: Aesthetic, Political and Ethical Issues in the Documentary Turn in Contemporary Art  

The XXIth century has promoted Documentary as the quintessential art form, not only in photography, cinema and visual arts (their traditional mediums) but also in literature, theatre or even dance. This expanded practice of documentary brings new forms, manners and subjects to represent reality. Distancing itself from direct and objective view (closely linked to the medium of photography and cinema), these new forms experiment with a large range of forms, from fiction, re-enactment, self-performance of characters, to auto-biographical or poetical approach, or even displays of documents or archives. If, from an ontology of art or an aesthetic approach, the narrow documentary nature of these forms can be put into question, it may be more relevant to identify what they bring to the documentary tradition and how they expand the ways of representing reality in a world dominated by a non-critic visual culture. In a world driven by two counter tendencies (an over visibility and a sub-representation of its ideological and technical structures), what kind of vision and representation of the world can the documentary provide? How can these forms engage the viewer and improve his/her capacity of taking action?  

Dr. Aline Caillet  

Short biography  

Aline Caillet is professor in Aesthetics at the School of the Arts of the Sorbonne (University Paris 1). She’s co-responsible of the research team “Aesthetic and Critical Theory of Culture” hosted by the research institute ACTE.   

Her research focused over the last ten years on the Documentary Turn in visual arts, aiming to rethink the way art practices take place in social and political reality. She’s now interested more specifically in the “extra-aesthetic” logics and dynamics which shape or go through - implicitly or explicitly - artistic practices: range from institutional, economical or ideological standpoint but also epistemological – see her latest book, The Art of Inquiry. Practical knowledge and social sciences, released in 2019 or even urban.  

She directed with F. Pouillaude Un art documentaire. Enjeux esthétiques, politiques et éthiques (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017) and is the author of L’art de l’enquête. Savoirs pratiques et sciences sociales (Éditions Mimésis, 2019) and Dispositifs critiques. Le documentaire, du cinéma aux arts visuels (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014). She also contributed to many collective books, contemporary arts reviews (ESSE, Voix du regard, Parade, Proteus, Marges etc.) and exhibition catalogues. She also occasionally collaborates with artists for specific projects.  

10.00-10.30 BREAK 

 10.30-13.00   

I. SZEKCIÓ: MŰVÉSZET – TÁRSADALOM – DOKUMENTUM (magyar nyelven)  

• Gulyás Péter: Dokumentum, erőszak, hiány: Lacan és a tornászkatasztrófa  

• Pettendi-Szabó Péter: Háttértörténetek  

• Kovács Vera, Ducki Krzysztof és Tepes Ferenc: Érzékenyítés a művészeti oktatásban - A Tervezőgrafika szak és a Verzió Dokumentumfilm Fesztivál együttműködése  

• Csanádi-Bognár Szilvia: Dokumentum, irónia és interpretáció Hegedűs 2 László munkáiban  

 13.00-14.00 LUNCH 

 14.00-17.00    

II. SZEKCIÓ: Ózd, a csodák csodája (magyar nyelven)  

A rendszerváltás társadalmi következményei Almási Tamás filmjeiben  

Szekcióvezető: K. Horváth Zsolt  

Film: Meddő (Ózd-sorozat, rendezte: Almási Tamás, 1995)  

Beszélgetőpartner: Almási Tamás    

17.00-20.00  

III. SZEKCIÓ: ÖKOLÓGIAI VÁLSÁG ÉS A DOKUMENTUM (magyar nyelven)  

Szekcióvezető: Kudron Anna  

Film: ’2040’, ausztrál dokumentumfilm (rendezte: Damon Gameau, 2019)  

Beszélgetőpartnerek Kudron Anna és Csizmadia Máté  

FRIDAY, 8th SEPTEMBER 

 10.00-13.00   

IV. SZEKCIÓ: EGYÜTTES ÉLMÉNY, KÖZÖSSÉGI TUDÁSLÉTREHOZÁS (magyar nyelven)  

Szekcióvezető: Groó Diána - Pörczi Zsuzsa  

Film: Regina (rendezte: Groó Diána, 2013)  

Résztvevők: Groó Diána - Pörczi Zsuzsa – Papp Bojána  

13.00-14.00 LUNCH 

 14.00-17.00   

V. SZEKCIÓ: KULTÚRA ÉS ÖRÖKSÉG A HÁBORÚ IDEJÉN (magyar nyelven)  

Szekcióvezető: Somogyi Hajnalka  

Film: The Distruction of Memory (Tim Slade, 2016)  

Beszélgetőpartnerek: Schwechtje Mihály, Mérai Dóra és Török Ervin   

17.00-20.00  

SECTION 6: HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE DOCUMENTARY (in English) 

Panel moderator: Andrea Pócsik and Bálint Révész   

Film: KIX (directed by Bálint Révész, 2024)  

Discussion: Andrea Pócsik, Bálint Révész and students of METU   

In this section, we address one of the fundamental questions of the conference: the new ways of eliciting audience engagement. Starting with a „readers guide”-like approach to Balint Revesz's latest documentary film (KIX, 2024, 94’) we will attempt to use it as a background material for higher education. We compare the specific characteristics of the knowledge accumulated during the research period of the film and its final presentation in the form of the "film text", its transformation into a cinematic narrative. We aim to clearly distinguish between various forms of knowledge and modes of transmission (active, passive, narratable, visually representable, subject to scholarly research, emotionally accessible, etc.), and to examine how a documentary film becomes particularly suitable for conveying these aspects in education, both in terms of form and content.