ORGAN VIDA International Photography Organization based in Croatia invites artists from all over the world who work in the medium of photography as such or in an expanded form, video and sound, installation, collage to apply to this open call and respond to the given topic: HESITANT IMAGES. Members of an international jury (*Christian Siekmeier, Katrina Sluis, Steph Kretowicz, Mirjam Kooiman, Vesna Mestric*) will have the task of evaluating and selecting 10 artworks that respond to the questions raised in the open call.
The selected artists will exhibit their work at the main curated exhibition during the 11th ORGAN VIDA — International Photography Festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, opening *June 17th 2020.* Send your artwork (at least one project with up to 25 photographs, images, sketches) via the Picter platform. > https://contests.picter.com/organ-vida-open-call-2020-hesitant-images <https://organvida.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7512930af7fcc9fa9960fc983&id=eee709e3bb&e=dbdd74619a> *OPEN UNTIL: 24 March, 11:59 PM* : : : : : : HESITANT IMAGES : : : : : : The accessibility and continuous development of digital imaging technologies and the drastic popularization of social media, especially those that are visually-based, have defined the previous decade and led to the pervasiveness of the photographic image – from private communication, marketing and video game industries, to contemporary art. "Networked technologies," writes Astra Taylor, were supposed to "put professionals and amateurs on an even playing field, or even give the latter an advantage," and to enable artists and writers to "thrive without institutional backing" and "reach their audiences directly." But the initial optimism, based on the presumed democratic but also aesthetic potential of digital culture, subsided once it became apparent that market interests were hindering a radical transformation of digital cultural production and distribution. Reflecting on the crisis of representation, Hito Steyerl suggests that the popularization of visual representation through digital technologies has caused a serious crisis of political representation: "Visual representation matters, indeed, but not exactly in unison with other forms of representation. There is a serious imbalance between both. One the one hand, there is a huge number of images without referents; on the other, many people without representation." Furthermore, visual culture has, to some extent, been homogenised by computer-generated images, digital filters and other image manipulation methods, which have also created new types of images that cannot be understood in terms of the existing aesthetic categories. Images that tend to replicate rather than represent. Should representation be replaced with replication, writes Steyerl, "what emerges is not the image of the body, but the body of the image on which the information itself is but a thin surface or differentiation, shaped by different natural, technological or political forces." The 11th edition of Organ Vida focuses on the materiality of the image. We are interested in images that are political primarily in terms of how rather than what they represent. Images that offer a specific form of the intersection of facts and fiction, that are simultaneously explicitly "fake", "unreal", "falsified" and "authentic", but whose authenticity is manifested by showing the tensions and contradictions of contemporary digital culture. Images that aim to expand not the spectrum of the represented, but representation itself. Images that count upon their own commodification, using artistic intervention to semantically complicate and compound and bring to light precisely those processes that had led to its commodification, but without depriving us of fantasy. Images that self-reflect and encourage reflection. Images that unhesitatingly display hesitation. We are interested in innovative photographic forms, but also various visual art projects – videos, installations, performances – that proceed from the photographic image, but at the same time relativize and/or expand it, step out into the space or transform into motion. References: Steyerl, Hito. “Ripping reality: Blind spots and wrecked data in 3D“. URL: https://www.eipcp.net/e/projects/heterolingual/files/hitosteyerl/index.html <https://organvida.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7512930af7fcc9fa9960fc983&id=55fe887371&e=dbdd74619a> Steyerl, Hito. “The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation“, URL: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/32/68260/the-spam-of-the-earth-withdrawal-from-representation/ <https://organvida.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7512930af7fcc9fa9960fc983&id=0c349082d3&e=dbdd74619a> Taylor, Astra. 2014. The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. Random House Canada. -- *Curator and project manager at KONTEJNER <https://www.kontejner.org/>| bureau of contemporary art praxis and ORGAN VIDA <https://organvida.com/>* *personal: facebook <https://www.facebook.com/klara.petrovic.96>| instagram <https://www.instagram.com/kla.pet/>* *+385 98 9182 899* *ORGAN VIDA FESTIVAL / JUNE 2020* *TOUCH ME FESTIVAL / SEPTEMBER 2020*
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