The International Network for Visual Studies in Organization brings together researchers, practitioners and artists exploring the visual dimensions of business, management and organizational life. We hope these pages will become a rich source of visual and image-based scholarly material as well as the hub of a thriving, global research and teaching community. See below or select a category for latest news...
From an interesting website, Mashable, a story of the transformation of venerable British firm Burberry’s transition a ‘media company’. I have been interested in Burberry since their early 2000s rebranding, largely via black and white ’snapshot’ advertising campaigns. http://mashable.com/2011/09/21/burberry-media-fashion-company/?utm_source=iphoneapp
The 5th William A. Kern Conference on Visual Communication
Rochester Institute of Technology
May 3-5, 2012
When Images Cause Trouble: Visual Communication, Controversy, and Critical Engagement
Call for Papers
When do images cause trouble? One purpose of this conference is to discuss recent controversies in visual communication, including photojournalism, social media, advertising, and the visual arts, invoking issues of privacy, security, censorship, freedom of expression, and religious belief. In addition, as concerns over the power of images are not new, we would seek to historicize and contextualize current debates with historical perspectives, including, as an illustrative example, iconoclasm and the Protestant reformation in Europe –particularly Puritan image smashing in England during the 16th and 17th centuries. Following in the tradition of Kern conferences, we plan a rich program of interdisciplinary scholarship and conversation.
We invite submissions that address this theme from multiple points of views. How does work in visual communication, visual culture, visual rhetoric, and related fields shed light on controversial issues that surround the production and consumption of images? How can we understand current events in a historical perspective? What are the roles of regulation, oversight, government, and grass roots organizations in thinking seriously about images? What roles do technologies of surveillance play? How can we think about the ethics of representation?
Individual papers, visual presentations, panels and workshop proposals are welcomed.
Send extended abstracts (500 – 2500 words) via email to Jonathan Schroeder (jesgla@rit.edu).
Jonathan E. Schroeder
William A. Kern Professor of Communications
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester, New York 14623
In the Sunday Times on the 18th September Kate Mansey reported on a project called the Tales of Things – it’s funded by the Digital Economy Research Councils UK (£1.4m) and it’s a mix between Facebook, eBay and the Antiques Roadshow! It’s like a social network site of objects! It uses codes that are attached to objects and when they are scanned with a smartphone they link to the website specific to that item. Users can post comments or memories of objects to create a visual social network of things, rather than people.You can check out the project here: http://talesofthings.com/ and if you Google ‘Tales of Things, press’ you can download the press release for the project, further information and contact details.
The International Journal of Work, Organization and Emotion will be publishing the first ever collection of articles specifically interrogating the sensory nature of work and organizational culture(s).
Click here for the Call for Papers.
We’d particularly welcome papers from inVisio members that explore the interface between the visual and our other senses. Please drop me a line on swarren@essex.ac.uk if you want to chat informally about a submission. The editing team includes Prof Gavin Jack (La Trobe University, Australia), Kathleen Riach (Uni of Essex, UK), Antonio Strati (Uni of Trento, Italy) and me – Samantha Warren (Uni of Essex, UK)
As Sam Warren mentioned below, we have both just returned from the Visual Methods conference at the OU. There we met a research associate from The University of Sheffield who is part of a research project that is investigating shoes and identity! This fascinating project is called ‘If the Shoe Fits: Footwear, Identity and Transition’ …looking at anything from stilettos to sandals to Reebok classics, the project team are finding out about ‘…how these images of personal transformation might relate to actual shifts or transitions of identity that go on in everyday life and during the life course.’ Check out their website for more details www.sheffield.ac.uk/iftheshoefits
Harriet Shortt and I have just returned from the Visual Methods conference at the OU and wanted to share a great project on workshops, making and mending that academics at Uni of Exeter are carrying out: “The Small is Beautiful? project aims to investigate the material cultures associated with the making and mending of everyday objects in the South West of England” (smallisbeautifulproject.blogspot.com) Visit their fascinating blog for rich insights into a world of work that may well be a dying art.
Another ESRC funded seminar series relating to the visual – this time about inequalities research… Lots of useful ideas and resources on their website www.visualdialogues.co.uk especially for anyone working in a critical management studies tradition or with marginalised occupational groups. Hope you find it useful!
Harriet Shortt, Sam Warren and Caroline Scarles are running a workshop to debate ethical dilemmas in visual research practice at The Visual Methods Confence, Open University, UK, September 13th – 15th. Even if you are not attending the conference you can still take part in the workshop. Click here for the call for contributions
Creativity & Critique
September 2002 saw the birth of The Art of Management and Organization Conference on London’s legendary South Bank. Its aim was, and continues to be, the exploration and promotion of the arts (in the most inclusive sense) as a means of understanding management and organizational life and its contexts. Since then the conference has continued its collaborative and open ethos in Paris (2004), Krakow (2006), Banff (2008) and Istanbul (2010) and has given rise to a vibrant global community of praxis – including both scholars and practitioners. Although it is primarily a refereed academic conference, it is also a place for integration – and here, we encourage new links, relationships and explorations. Previous keynotes and featured events have included rock stars, comedians, actors, poets, musicians, artists, storytellers, dancers, photographers, calligraphers and philosophers.
Welcome….
This year for the tenth anniversary of the series the conference returns to the UK and we will be hosted by The York Management School in one of Britain’s most historic cities. York is a mecca for archaeologists, historians and divinity scholars renowned for its exquisite architecture, tangle of quaint cobbled streets and the iconic York Minster. A city of contrasts and exciting discoveries, York is a stylish city where the old encompasses the new and the commonplace meets with the unexpected – a fast developing cutting edge scene with world class museums, some of the country’s most talented street entertainers, annual Festival of Ideas and one of the UK’s oldest working picture houses (The City Screen) a traditional riverside picture house showing both mainstream and ‘art-house’ films.
The new RIBA Award-winning Heslington East campus is a perfect site for the conference, having flexible spaces and a state of the art Theatre, Film and Television Department, complemented by the facilities of a World Top 100 university. The University is a national centre for training in theatre, television, film, music, performance and arts management. It offers a combination of formal and informal spaces that characterise the versatility necessary for such a diverse conference, and offers the potential for a very exciting Sixth (and Tenth Anniversary) Art of Management and Organization Conference. We hope you will join us in this ongoing art and aesthetic adventure.
http://www.york.ac.uk/management/research/research-areas/organisation-theory/art_of_management/