‘Estranged Realities’ is a one-day conference organised by and for postgraduate students. Its aim is to provide a forum for discussion of diverse aspects of representational practices as produced by photography and film (including digital manifestations). In hiding the conditions of its production, film and photography have been able to simultaneously produce ‘otherness’ and difference whilst also allowing for imaginative and subjective interventions into realist discourses. Whether as a vehicle for producing knowledge (however subjective or partial) or intervening in the production of reality, photography and film provide rich breeding grounds for discussions on the estrangement of the medium from itself and the medium from its subject.

‘Estranged Realities’ will provide a friendly and critical forum for the presentation of papers. Submissions from MPhil/PhD candidates or candidates who have submitted thesis within the past twelve months are welcome (whether practice-led or theoretical/historical).

‘Estranged Realities’ is organised and funded by the Centre for Photographic Research, the International Film School Wales and InvisibleCollege.

The conference fee will be £20, including refreshments and lunch
Concessions available. Please contact the conference organisers as listed below.

The day is expected to run from 09.30 to 17.30

Papers should be no more than 20 minutes. Please send abstracts of not more than 250 words plus a brief CV by
24th April 2006 to:

Ronnie.close@students.newport.ac.uk
Julia.peck@students.newport.ac.uk

Possible themes are:

• The dynamics of picturing people and place
• Visualising differences, whether class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity etc.
• Explorations of emerging identities or shifting territories
• The position of the spectator in consuming difference
• Discussions of (cultural) anthropological work
• The reality effect of the image
• Surrealist appropriations of the real
• Discussion of practices or strategies which makes evident the gap between the object and representation