2007 SPE Annual Conference Overview

Look Out: Photography and the Worlds of Contemporary Art

When March 15-18, 2007
Where Radisson Miami, Miami, Florida
Keynote Speaker Nancy Spector
Featured Speakers An-My Lê
Honored Educator Rod Slemmons

"Look Out" will explore the prominent role and characteristics of photographic media within international contemporary art in an age in which communication can be nearly instantaneous and the audience is increasingly global. Countries represented by themes and / or presenters include Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Cuba, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam. Installation practices, scale changes and seriality are transforming our spatial experience and temporal understanding of the photographic image. Presentation techniques now range from 19th century applied emulsions to digital applications and screen technologies; approaches extend from the overtly stage-managed and highly personalized to an impression of hyper-objectivity. How does our reading of the photographic image change in these various formal, social, and multidisciplinary contexts? Along with the "decisive moment", what are the temporal possibilities that are being explored between the still and moving image? In contrast to global homogeneity, what cultural, political or geographical differences prevail within contemporary photography?