International Conference Visual Motifs of Power and the Public Sphere on September 20-21, 2021 in Barcelona, Spain

The I INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE VISUAL MOTIFS OF POWER AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE will take place online on September 20th and 21st, 2021, ONLINE. The Conference aims at bringing together experts in cinema, visual arts, and researchers on social and political communication, in order to establish the core principles that define the system of self-production of images of power and the public sphere. The initiative is part of the research project VISUAL MOTIFS IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE: PRODUCTION AND CIRCULATION OF IMAGES OF POWER IN SPAIN (2011-2017). In this context, the Conference calls for empirical research and theoretical approaches on the ways in which power and the public sphere are staged, how their images are reinterpreted by citizens, and which mechanisms exist for appropriating and reinventing iconographic sources.

Among the possible topics, the following are proposed:

-Visual motifs in the representation of the different spheres of the public arena: political, economic, judicial, police, civil organizations and forms of citizen participation.

-Motifs and visual narratives of political campaigns based on the reinvention of previous iconographic sources.

-The study of the representation of power and the public sphere in cinema.

-The  iconographic  evocation  in photojournalistic  practices;  the  civil  contract  of photography.-GIFs, memes and mashups, both in political processes and in the public sphere.-Case studies and production studies in photojournalism, television, online media and social networks concerning images of power.

-Theoretical studies on the continuity and transformations of political iconography