All may be fictions: becoming a camera in the AI age

Kearsley, Morwenna (2024) All may be fictions: becoming a camera in the AI age. In: 26th Arts Research Initiative: Art as Resistance: Creative Practice in Austerity Britain, 20 November 2024, Stanwix Theatre, University of Cumbria, Carlisle, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

For me, photography is an augury and a barometer for contemporary anxieties. I will argue that the current conditions of photography reflect something of the lives of the average citizen. Characterised on the one hand by a renewed fetishisation of “traditional” analogue materials and on the other by the emergence of “contemporary” synthetic Ai-generated images, photography mirrors the fractured image of “Britain”, as a nation state and a disputed identity. Using techniques of disruption, from collage to rephotography, my recent work positions the camera and the operator as fused entities, where the apparatus echoes that of the state (hidden in plain sight, immovable, omnipresent) but is also a site of experimentation and potential new futures. Retracing the lineage of the “surreal” image, I circle back to practices of collectivity and camEra-derie.

‘The local is the international, the national is the parochial’ (Leonard). The focus of this University of Cumbria Arts Research Initiative (ARI) conference is to explore the role of creative practice as a form of socio-political engagement, with a focus on the evolving intersection of art, ideology, identity and place within the neoliberal world. Set in the context of North-West England, this conference brings together artists, writers arts organisers and academics to interrogate how creative practice responds to, reflects, and challenges the received conventions of the so-called therapeutic institution. Presentations and discussions will address how creative practice engages critically with issues and notions of economic migration, place, climate, authority and social class. Situating creative practice within both local, regional and national contexts, the conference seeks to enable a critical dialogue on its relation to communities, both real and imagined, within the neoliberal epoch.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Lecture)
Departments:	Institute of Arts > Graphics and Photography
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	27 Nov 2024 11:14
Last Modified:	28 Nov 2024 10:15
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/8496

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