Cinema and Embodiment - A Symposium on the Aesthetics of Pornography
Event Information
Description
Date: Thursday 3rd of March 2016, 09.30am-4pm
Location: DLT3, University of Kent
The event is free, but registration is required
This one-day symposium focuses on the intimate relationship between cinema, embodiment, and pornography by bringing together an interdisciplinary range of speakers, originating from disciplines such as philosophy of art, film and media studies, and cultural studies. Within film studies, there has been an increased interest in exploring the relationship between cinema, embodiment, and the senses. Whether investigating the “cinema of attractions” in early cinema, the creation of a “haptic visuality” in intercultural and feminist film, or specific “body genres” such as horror, melodrama, and pornography, different film scholars have argued against the conventional emphasis on vision and visibility and for a conceptualisation of embodied spectatorship. In relation, recent research in analytic aesthetics has focused on the multimodality of perception as well as definitions of erotic art and pornography. But in what ways do different pornographies engage with the sensate, tactile, and visceral experience of sexuality? By instigating a dialogue between scholars from different approaches we hope that this symposium will advance scholarly engagement with the "carnal aesthetics" of pornography.
Program:
09.30 - 09.45
Opening remarks by Hans Maes
09.45 - 10.45
"More Than Just Flesh: The Porn Performer’s Body in Action" - Clarissa Smith – University of Sunderland
10.45 - 11.45
"Feeling Wasteland: Utopianism and Backwardness in Queer Porn" - Ingrid Ryberg – Stockholm University
11.45 - 12.00
Coffee and tea
12.00 - 13.00
"Wet Aesthetics and Queer Pornography" - Petra van Brabandt – St Lucas School of Arts Antwerp
13.00 - 14.00
Lunch (not provided)
14.00 - 15.00
"Look! but also, Touch! Theorizing Images of Trans Eroticism Beyond a Politics of Visual Essentialism" - Eliza Steinbock – Leiden University
15.00 - 16.00
Panel Discussion
After the symposium, everyone is invited for drinks at the Bottle Shop of the Good Shed, Canterbury
All talks will be recorded and made available on the website of the Aesthetics Research Centre.
Ushering in the symposium, on Wednesday night there will be a film screening of a selection of short pornographic films organized around the theme of cinema and embodiment. See:
The symposium and film screening are two of the components that make up the cross-disciplinary project Confined Projections, which is part of the International Festival of Projections taking place at the University of Kent 18-20 March 2016. The project also includes the exhibition of six custom-made mutoscopes, showing work by national and international artists and filmmakers. Taking the mutoscope as leitmotiv, this project investigates the tension between public and private, visibility and invisibility, and proximity and distance in the film experience, revealing interesting connections between this early form of cinema and more recent developments in erotic filmmaking.
For more information on the project visit: https://confinedprojections.wordpress.com
Disclaimer: Please be aware that due to the theme of the event, both the symposium and the film screening will discuss and show images of a mature content.
We adopt the BPA/SWIP Good Practice Scheme 
With the generous support of: The British Society of Aesthetics The Aesthetics Research Centre, University of Kent The Centre for Film and Media Research, University of Kent
