Lecture: Affect as Medium

Date: 15 January 2009

Time: 17:30 - 19:30

Location: Optometry Building, Maindy Road, Cardiff

The Institute for the Study of Visual Cultures and The Representing Mobility and Migration in European Cultures research network, in association with the HMF research unit present:

A lecture by Professor Mieke Bal, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam, and Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Professor.

Affect as Medium

Affect has come to be used frequently, as it has replaced a combination of terms in recent criticism, such as cultural memory and trauma. Attention to affect can help us to understand art as the creation of an environment, comparable to the contemporary city; beyond the mind-body, or cognition-emotion, splits. Prof. Bal’s paper will argue that affect is a precondition on the part of the reader or viewer for even beginning to understand the work. ‘Close reading’, the practice of detailed attention leading to interpretation, is itself an affective engagement. This engagement opens up what may otherwise seem almost impenetrable. Prof. Bal will address such issues as the relationship between the present and the past, interdisciplinarity, and intercultural connection, through a close reading of a still image from the most recent work by Finnish cinematographer Eija-Liisa Ahtila.

All staff and students are invited. Please contact Gemma Broadhurst to request a free ticket.