11th NECS Graduate Workshop — call for papers
11th NECS Graduate Workshop. Contemporary Perspectives on the city: screen media and dwelling
Milan, Italy, 17.-18. June 2014
The contemporary city represents a new context of experimentation in terms of
languages of communication, aesthetics and media consumption. The most
immediate result is a new sense of place, fed and inspired by a massive
presence of screen media. Sentient city and Screencity are just some of the
most recent formulations attempting to tackle the emerging trends taking
place in the contemporary urban environment. Intercepting the research of
media studies, (media) architecture, (post-)cinema studies, aesthetics,
semiotics of space and philosophy, the workshop invites a focus on the
multifaceted perspectives on the contemporary city. Moving images are
presented quite ubiquitously by means of diverse devices, such as
media-façades, media-buildings, mobile screen media, smartphones, etc. In
this sense, the city is to be intended both as a text itself and as the place
of the embodied experience. This highlights on the one hand the need of
critical understanding of contemporary culture and politics as saturated by
media technologies; on the other hand, the crucial role of the individual in
his/her phenomenological dimension is underscored.
Dwelling can be considered as a key-concept to interpret these phenomena: it
represents an existential act that shapes the world according to the
instances of human subjectivity. At the same time the presence of the subject
himself is redefined by the constant intervention of screen media, which
produce virtual spaces implying the intervention of the individual involved
in a permanent (de)territorialization.
This workshop aims to highlight the topic from different disciplinary angles
which might include:
• Film philosophy (images of city, city of images)•
• Phenomenology (the relationship between space and the active body as
intentional source of its constitution; processes that involve directly the
notion of territory)
• Aesthetics (new sensibilities leaded by media opening other spaces of
dwelling)
• New media and architecture (media building, outdoor projection, video
mapping etc)
• Political ontology (the urban dimension as a projection of social order)
Doctoral candidates and early-career researchers are invited to submit
proposals for contributions addressing these and related topics, including,
but not limited to:
• Reconstruction of mediascape in the age of the screencity;
• Media-building (communication strategies and techniques in the
architectural field)
• Media/Visual practices of dwelling
• Visual phenomenology of urban space
• Practices of the territory (territorialization, deterritorialization
through media)
• Corporeity (embodiment, perception and interaction processes throughout
the city)
• Mobile screen media practices in the urban environment
• Experimental film screenings, live audiovisual events, audio/video
performance in the city
• Urban activism (new media practices, hackerism, etc)
Submissions deadline: 28 February 2014
Please address abstracts (300-500 words) along with institutional affiliation
and brief biographical note to: graduates@necs.org
Notification will follow shortly thereafter. The conference language is
English. Participants will need to cover their own travel and accommodation
expenses. Travel information as well as a list of affordable hotels and other
accommodation will be provided. Workshop attendance is free, but valid
NECS membership is required to participate.
Participants must register with NECS and pay their fee by
June 1st.
NECS Graduate Workshop Organisers:
Miriam De Rosa, Giancarlo Grossi (Catholic University of Sacred Heart,
Milan), Alena Strohmaier, (Philipps-University Marburg)
Link to the workgroup.