IMAGES - Project Concept

 

 

 

 

update: 31 January 2014

 

 

General responsibility:

CEnT – Cultural Encounters and Transfer/ KiK – Kulturen im Kontakt/ Cultures in Contact, Leopold-Franzens-University, Innsbruck, Innrain 52, A-6020 Innsbruck and Kadir Has University, Istanbul/ Turkey (Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences and Faculty of Communication), Austrian Culture Forum Istanbul, Istanbul/ Turkey.

 

Project partners:

Austrian Culture Forum Istanbul, Istanbul/ Turkey (logistic partner), Zayed University, Dubai/ United Arab Emirates, Ege University, Izmir/ Turkey.

  

Planning, coordination and final editing (project directors):

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Veronika Bernard, Cultures in Contact, Leopold-Franzens-Leopold-Franzens-University, Innrain 52, A-6020 Innsbruck,

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Serhan Oksay, Kadir Has University, Kadir Has Caddesi, TR-34083 Cibali-Istanbul/ Turkey (till 31 January 2013).

 

Scientific team: theoretical background, research (in alphabetical order):

Vedat Akman (2010-2012; Kadir Has University, Istanbul/ Turkey), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Veronika Bernard (Leopold-Franzens-University, Innsbruck/ Austria), Dr. Atalay Gündüz (Ege University, Izmir/ Turkey), Dr. Mohamad Masad (Zayed University, Dubai/ United Arab Emirates), Doz. Dr. Serhan Oksay (Kadir Has University, Istanbul/ Turkey; till 31 January 2013), Ass. Prof. Dr. Hatice Övgü Tüzün (Bahçeşehir University, istanbul/ Turkey), Prof. Dr. Gönül Ücele (Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul/ Turkey) 

 

Creative team: online competitions, exhibit and exhibition design (in alphabetical order): Assoc. Prof. Dr. Veronika Bernard (Leopold-Franzens-University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck/ Austria), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Serhan Oksay (Kadir Has University, Istanbul/ Turkey; till 31 January 2013).

 

 

 

 

Project structure: 4 fields of activities (conference series, online photo contests, exhibitions, publications)

 

Project duration: 4-5 years

 

Project funding: University of Innsbruck (Research Platform CEnT – Cultural Encounters and Transfer/ KiK), project partners, and others.

 

Project description:

 

 

The project „IMAGES“ has been planned and scheduled for the years 2011-2014/ 2015. It has been initiated by the research focus Cultures in Contact, which is part of the humanities research platform CEnT (Cultural Encounters and Transfers) at Leopold-Franzens-University at Innsbruck/ Austria. The senior project partner is Kadir Has University in Istanbul/ Turkey.

 

„IMAGES“ strongly relies on the cooperation with international academic and non-academic partners. The target group of the project activities are academics and non-academics age 15-40+.

 

The interdisciplinary project „IMAGES“ deals with the discourse of cultural encounters within the context of social co-existence. The project defines “discourse of cultural encounters” as the discourse within the context of cultural encounters and as the discourse on cultural encounters. With the discourse in situations of cultural encounters the project focuses on everyday-life discourse; with the discourse on cultural encounters the focus is on both academic and everyday-life discourse. Within this scope the project deals with verbal and non-verbal communication and in particular looks at certain topics (poverty, migration). 

 

„IMAGES” adapts a cultural studies definition of the term “culture”; it includes perspectives on cultural phenomena taken by communication studies, and defines migration as a process of people moving across and within state borders for various reasons. The project starts from the idea that the images you form (of you and of others) essentially shape relations and communication between both individuals and communities, and at the same time are their results. Images are taken as reality by humans. Plato has explained his theory of a relative reality, i. e. of the ways images are formed, in his text „Allegory of the Cave “. Contemporary communication studies introduce images (as the images an individual holds of his or her own self and the images others form of you) to a communicative system formed of values, evaluation and selective perception. No matter which my values are, as a whole they build that very system by which I evaluate and judge the ways others act, look and speak in order to find out whether they fit in with my values. In case they do there is the realistic chance of a positive and fruitful communicational process; in case they do not, communication will go wrong and end soon – in a comparatively unspectacular way by cutting communicational ties or in a rather dramatic way by leading into conflict.

 

Intercultural communication studies analyze these mechanisms with individuals from different cultures. From an intercultural perspective (intercultural) communication means that you open your own culture to ideas rooting in the other’s culture by dropping own cultural ideas and including ideas rooting in the communication partner’s culture. This is possible only, however, if cultures have a minimum number of ideas in common. Intercultural communication aims at increasing the number of ideas cultures have in common; increasing their number makes the difference between successful and not successful (intercultural) communication. In case there are no ideas in common intercultural communication will be impossible and the cultures involved will not be able to reach a better mutual understanding.¹

 

What is culture, though? Cultural studies define culture by embracing the idea of the group. Very simply said, culture is the sum of all the features and ways of behaviour people show and adapt deliberately in order to become distinct from others and to form their specific identities. Consequently, a person can be part of several cultures. You may be born into a culture – or you may deliberately join a culture; you may actively design a culture – or you can rather passively be part of a culture; you can decide to leave a culture – or you can take efforts to change a culture (from the inside or from the outside). Following this idea, e. g. teenagers can design cultures actively and can be passively part of other cultures at the same time – as old people, migrants, the rich and the poor can be. Social classes may form cultures, just as religions and/ or ideologies may do. ²

 

The individual features which create identities and identify groups as cultures can be equated with the values of communication studies; they form the very system of values which we evaluate others by.

  

The images we create of others in our minds root in our individual codes of values. They do not represent the results of our evaluation of others, though, but the conclusions we draw from the results of evaluation: The elderly lady wearing a classical suit may regard the young man wearing skater trousers a notorious trouble maker because of his clothes. The woman on the street wearing a mini-skirt, a belly-free and low necked T-shirt may represent the moral decadence of modern society for the conservative Catholic. The grandmother in her 80s may regard her granddaughter’s vocabulary indecent and vulgar when the girl shows her joy about the grandmother’s present by calling it “geil” (meaning: great, gorgeous) – a word of German language which for the grandmother describes a person who publicly shows sexually greedy behaviour. In all these cases people evaluate others according to their own values – they have created their images of the others.

 

At the same time they have created the image of a culture because in each of these examples not only individuals but cultures have come into contact. Which further course the situation described will take is uncertain, though, and of open end. According to intercultural communication the development will be defined by the amount of ideas the cultures involved have in common but also by the people involved: The elderly lady may try to stay out of the young man’s way because she is frightened; she may address him and interview him about his clothes; she may bark at him he should give way to her. The young man may ignore her; he may explain his choice of dress to her; he may laugh at her; curse at her; or knock her down. The man may look at the mini skirt woman in a disparaging way; he may ignore her; he may spit into her face; or he may involve her in some conversation aiming at “converting” her. The grandmother, who likes her granddaughter, may tell her what the word “geil” meant when she was young – and the granddaughter, who likes her grandmother, may explain what she means when using this word.

 

The project „IMAGES“ defines cultural encounters as cultural contacts like the ones above, which include all possible outcomes. The project does not share positions which identify cultural encounters with cultural contacts which exclusively motivate genuinely positive and fruitful intercultural processes following the intercultural definition of the term. „IMAGES“ identifies cultural contacts also with actions and reactions which may escalate and end in conflict: just think of the cultural provocation; the cultural misunderstanding you are not aware of; the claim made by one culture to culturally “educate” other cultures; the cultural prejudice. In doing so the project considers the fact that the images we create of others are subject to selective perception; the images are sent through the filters of selective perception and by this turn into prejudice, i. e. judgements on others which are not open to re-evaluation by personal contact or re-evaluation in mind. We see what we prefer to see. This is true of the positive as well as of the negative.

 

The filters of selective perception root in our values. Our values root in our individual life experiences and our cultural backgrounds: our social, ideological and religious belonging – and in the ways in which we experience our very cultural backgrounds. By considering the communicative mechanism of selective perception the project understands cultural encounters and the possible ways they take as circular patterns, and it sees itself as part of these circular patterns: The academic discourse on cultural encounters, poverty and migration, which will be dealt with in the conference series, will be contrasted to the results originating from the online photo-and-short film contest, which document the everyday-life discourse within and on cultural encounters, and they will be evaluated inter-culturally concerning the ideas they have in common. In this way „IMAGES“ adds to the critical discussion on the definitions of cultural encounters.

 

 

¹ Find more on the theory and methods of intercultural communication in Jean-René Ladmiral, Edmond Marc Lipiansky: Interkulturelle Kommunikation. Zur Dynamik mehrsprachiger Gruppen. Frankfurt a. Main: Campus 2000.

² Find more on culture and cultural studies in Klaus P. Hansen: Kultur und Kulturwissenschaft. Eine Einführung. Tübingen und Basel: A. Francke/ UTB ³2003.

  

^{©Veronika Bernard}

 

 

 

 

Table of activities

 

   

(1) International and Interdisciplinary Conference Series 2011-2014/ 2015

 

• “IMAGES (1) – Films as Spaces of Cultural Encounters” (2011)

A 3-day conference with about 50-60 speakers to be co-organized by Universities of Innsbruck and Kadir Has University Istanbul, supported by Hochschule für Medienkunst Köln and Austrian Culture Forum Istanbul

Conference venue: Kadir Has University Cibali Campus, Istanbul

 

• “IMAGES (2)  – Images of the Poor” (2012)

A 3-day conference with about 50-60 speakers to be co-organized by Universities of Innsbruck and partners

Austrian Cultural Forum Istanbul

 

• “IMAGES (3) – Images of the City”  (2013)

A 3-day conference with about 50-60 speakers to be co-organized by Universities of Innsbruck and partners

Austrian Cultural Forum

 

• “IMAGES (4) – Images of the Other: Istanbul, Vienna, Venice”  (2014)

A 3-day conference with about 50-60 speakers to be co-organized by Universities of Innsbruck and partners

Conference venue: to be announced

 

 

 

 

• “IMAGES (5) – German-Turkish Images”  (2015)

A 3-day conference with about 50-60 speakers to be co-organized by Universities of Innsbruck and partners

Conference venue: to be announced

 

 

 

 

 

aim: publication of conference proceedings in English  

 

 

 

(2) International online photo contest series

 

 

• “IMAGES (1) – Cultural Encounters” (2011) organized by Serhan Oksay (Kadir Has University Istanbul):

 

participants will shoot photos which document their ideas of cultural encounters

 

 

• “IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor” (2011) organized by Serhan Oksay (Kadir Has University Istanbul):

 

participants will shoot photos which document their images of poverty          

 

 

 

 

aim: the photos will be included in exhibitions

 

 

 

(3) Exhibitions

 

• “IMAGES (1) – Cultural Encounters” (2011 and 2012) organized by Veronika Bernard (University of Innsbruck) and Serhan Oksay (Kadir Has University Istanbul)

 

Locations: Kadir Has University Istanbul, Austrian St. George’s High School Istanbul, University of Applied Sciences Kufstein and other places

 

 

• “IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor” (2011 and 2012) organized by Veronika Bernard (University of Innsbruck) and Serhan Oksay (Kadir Has University Istanbul)

 

Locations: Kadir Has University Istanbul, University of Applied Sciences Kufstein and other places

 

     

 

    

 

(4) Publications

 

5 conference proceedings

2 exhibition-catalogues showing selected photos (winner photos) from the online competition

 

 

Project Schedule 

 

  

IMAGES (1): 2011

 

 

International online photo and short film contest “IMAGES (1) – Cultural Encounters”: February – March 2011

 

International online photo and short film contest “IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor”: February – March 2011

 

“IMAGES (1) – Films as Spaces of Cultural Encounters” Conference: Istanbul, Kadir Has University Cibali Campus, 1- 4 June 2011

co-organized by: University of Innsbruck - CEnT (Veronika Bernard), Kadir Has University (Serhan Oksay, Vedat Akman)

 

“IMAGES (1) – Cultural Encounters” and “IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor” Exhibition: Istanbul, Kadir Has University Cibali Campus, 25 April – 4 June 2011

 

“IMAGES (1) – Cultural Encounters” Exhibition: Kufstein, University of Applied Sciences, December 2011

 

Publication of Conference proceedings “IMAGES (1) – Films as Spaces of Cultural Encounters”: December 2011/ January 2012

 

Publication of Exhibition catalogue “IMAGES (1) – Cultural Encounters”: September 2011

 

 

 

IMAGES (2): 2012

 

        

“IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor” Conference: Austrian Cultural Forum Istanbul

co-organized by: Veronika Bernard (University of Innsbruck - CEnT), Serhan Oksay (Kadir Has University)

 

“IMAGES (1) – Cultural Encounters” and “IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor” Exhibition: place and date to be announced

 

Publication of Conference proceedings “IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor”: December 2012/ January 2013

 

 

 

IMAGES (3): 2013

 

       

“IMAGES (3) – Images of the City” Conference: Austrian Cultural Forum Istanbul, October/ November 2013

  

co-organized by: Veronika Bernard (University of Innsbruck - CEnT), Gönül Ücele, Hatice Övgü Tüzün

 

Publication of Conference proceedings “IMAGES (3) – Images of the City”: June 2014  

 

       

 

 

IMAGES (4): 2014

 

 

“IMAGES (4) – Images of the Other: Istanbul, Vienna, Venice”: place and date to be announced

co-organized by: Veronika Bernard (University of Innsbruck - CEnT), Gönül Ücele, Hatice Övgü Tüzün  

 

      

Publication of Conference proceedings “IMAGES (4) – Images of the Other: Istanbul, Vienna, Venice”: May 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMAGES (5): 2015  

 

 

“IMAGES (5) – German-Turkish Images”: conference venue and date to be announced

co-organized by: Veronika Bernard (University of Innsbruck - CEnT) and partners 

 

      

Publication of Conference proceedings “IMAGES (5) – German-Turkish Images”: April 2016  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conference Short Descriptions

 

 

• “IMAGES (1) – Films as Spaces of Cultural Encounters” Conference (Istanbul, Kadir Has University Cibali Campus, 2011)

 

The conference “IMAGES – Films as Spaces of Cultural Encounters” will be co-organized as a 4-days English speaking international and interdisciplinary conference by CEnT – Cultural Encounters and Transfer (Innsbruck) and Kadir Has University (Istanbul). It will be supported by Hochschule für Medienkunst (Cologne) and the Austrian Culture Forum Istanbul.

The conference “IMAGES – Films as Spaces of Cultural Encounters” will bring together senior scholars with PhD students, and postdoctoral academics, without following the classical keynote speaker pattern but rather inviting all speakers either to present their research findings in 20-30 minute (paper) presentations plus 10 minutes for discussion or in 120-150 minute panels (4-5 panellists).

Paper and panel proposals may include all topics analyzing films as spaces of cultural encounters from a cultural studies perspective in general, and an inter-cultural, multi-cultural, trans-cultural, semiotic, communication centred, linguistic, sociological, historical, comparative, educational, and political perspective in particular, and from all related perspectives.

There will also be room provided for presentations of creative works focussing on the topic.

 

• “IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor” Conference (place and date to be announced)

 

The conference “IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor” will be co-organized as a 4-days English speaking international and interdisciplinary conference by CEnT – Cultural Encounters and Transfer (Innsbruck) and partners. It will be supported by further project partners and the Austrian Culture Forum Istanbul.

The conference “IMAGES – Images of the Poor” will bring together senior scholars with PhD students, and postdoctoral academics, without following the classical keynote speaker pattern but rather inviting all speakers either to present their research findings in 20-30 minute (paper) presentations plus 10 minutes for discussion or in 120-150 minute panels (4-5 panellists).

Paper and panel proposals may include all topics analyzing images of the poor from an economics and a cultural studies perspective in general, and from a political, semiotic, communication centred, linguistic, educational, sociological, historical, literary, and comparative perspective in particular, and from all related perspectives.

There will also be room provided for presentations of creative works focussing on the topic.

 

 

• “IMAGES (3) – Images of the City” Conference (Austrian Cultural Forum Istanbul)

 

The conference “IMAGES (2) – Images of the City” will be co-organized as a 4-days English speaking international and interdisciplinary conference by CEnT – Cultural Encounters and Transfer (Innsbruck) and partners. It will be supported by further project partners and the Austrian Culture Forum Istanbul.

The conference “IMAGES – Images of the City” will bring together senior scholars with PhD students, and postdoctoral academics, without following the classical keynote speaker pattern but rather inviting all speakers either to present their research findings in 20-30 minute (paper) presentations plus 10 minutes for discussion or in 120-150 minute panels (4-5 panellists).

Paper and panel proposals may include all topics analyzing images of the city from an economics and a cultural studies perspective in general, and from a political, semiotic, communication centred, linguistic, educational, sociological, historical, literary, and comparative perspective in particular, and from all related perspectives.

There will also be room provided for presentations of creative works focussing on the topic.

 

 

• “IMAGES (4) – Images of the Other:  Istanbul, Vienna, Venice” Conference (place and date to be announced)

 

The conference “IMAGES (4) – Images of the Other: Istanbul, Vienna, Venice” will be co-organized as a 2-3 days English speaking international and interdisciplinary conference by CEnT – Cultural Encounters and Transfer (Innsbruck) and partners. It will be supported by further project partners and the Austrian Culture Forum Istanbul.

The conference “IMAGES – Images of the Other: Istanbul, Vienna, Venice” will bring together senior scholars with PhD students, and postdoctoral academics, without following the classical keynote speaker pattern but rather inviting all speakers either to present their research findings in 20-30 minute (paper) presentations plus 10 minutes for discussion or in 120-150 minute panels (4-5 panellists).

Paper and panel proposals may include all topics analyzing images of Istanbul from an economics and a cultural studies perspective in general, and from a political, semiotic, communication centred, linguistic, educational, sociological, historical, literary, and comparative perspective in particular, and from all related perspectives.

There will also be room provided for presentations of creative works focussing on the topic.

 

   

•  “IMAGES (5) – German-Turkish Images” Conference (place and date to be announced)

 

The conference “IMAGES (5) – German-Turkish Images” will be co-organized as a 2-3 days English speaking international and interdisciplinary conference by CEnT – Cultural Encounters and Transfer (Innsbruck) and partners. It will be supported by further project partners and the Austrian Culture Forum Istanbul.

The conference “IMAGES – German-Turkish Images” will bring together senior scholars with PhD students, and postdoctoral academics, without following the classical keynote speaker pattern but rather inviting all speakers either to present their research findings in 20-30 minute (paper) presentations plus 10 minutes for discussion or in 120-150 minute panels (4-5 panellists).

Paper and panel proposals may include all topics analyzing images of Istanbul from an economics and a cultural studies perspective in general, and from a political, semiotic, communication centred, linguistic, educational, sociological, historical, literary, and comparative perspective in particular, and from all related perspectives.

There will also be room provided for presentations of creative works focussing on the topic.