Category Archives: News

Symposium “Listening as Witnessing”, 16-19/10/2023, @Circuits and Currents, Athens

 

The Symposium explores listening as a process of witnessing with regard to traumatic, invisible or inaudible sounds, voices, (hi)stories. How is trauma acoustically represented? What does it take to make an absent sound or voice heard? What is the ethical and political positionality of listening as witnessing? And what of the unlistenable, when it becomes difficult to listen further? What kind of response and responsibilities does listening-witnessing call for? Can mutualities and networks of care develop through practices of listening in such contexts? Can listening become the point where different struggles meet? What are the intersections of listening-witnessing and art practices? Bringing together scholars, artists, activists and researchers involved in a range of practices and contexts, the Symposium aims to nurture meeting points and collaborative dialogue which can contribute to new perspectives on listening as witnessing.

 

Participation of the artist/researcher and Assistant Professor at DCCMI, Maria Paschalidou, in the Symposium “Listening as tWitnessing”. Participation with the textual announcement “From/In memory. Acoustic performances of political loss”, presentation of a short excerpt from the video “The world upside down” © Maria Paschalidou 2020 and of the audio work “Side sounds” © Maria Paschalidou 2023.

 

The Symposium is organized in the context of ERC CoG MUTE (grant agreement no. 101002720) PI Anna Papaeti. Co-organized by Institute of Historical Research (NHRF/EIE) & The Listening Academy (Brandon LaBelle) in collaboration with the Athens School of Fine Arts.

 

16 to 19 October 2023
@Circuits and Currents, Athens

 

Symposium Program

 

Our channel on Youtube

 

The Department of Culture, Creative Media, and Industries has created a channel on YouTube. The channel will feature audiovisual productions (films, video art, videos) that have been produced within the framework of courses or activities of the Department.

 

The first video that was uploaded is a student Ethnographic film trailer showing films made by students at the Studio-Class/seminar “Communities and Culture: Visual Ethnography Lab”. Winter Term 2022/23, Department of Media, Creative Media and Industries, University of Thessaly. Taught by Konstantinos Kalantzis, TA: Konstantinos Diamantis.

 

https://www.youtube.com/@DepartmentOfCultureAndNewMedia

International Workshop in Theory and Sound II, Αugust 28-30, 2023

 

International Workshop in Theory and Sound II
Pelion, Moni Paou, Greece
Αugust 28-30, 2023

 

Mediterranean (post)colonialisms

 

Co-organized by the department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology and the department of Culture, Creative Media and Industries, University of Thessaly.

 

The theoretical workshop seeks to rethink the “Mediterranean” as a relational and elusive musical place emerging through its multiple, unfinished trajectories and temporalities, as well as a multivalent discursive/sonic field for a radical critique of modernity activating contingencies for unlearning history. Drawing upon paradigms from the Mediterranean “East”, it is motivated by the reconsideration of the Mediterranean less in terms of a fixed, spatial category and more as a musical idea: to re-imagine and listen to the Mediterranean as an unruly, incomplete archive of sounds and as a “boundless sea” of genres and voices to be performed, of sonic odysseys to be (re-)mapped, of connectivities and disconnections to be (re-)appraised.

 

To register, visit the site.

 

Promoting Inclusion: Our Response

On 30th December 2022, in the framework of the course ‘Educational Actions and Cultural Mediation’ of the Department of Culture and Creative Media and Industries (DCCMI), University of Thessaly, the educational action ‘Drag Queens Read Christmas Fairy Tales / ‘Drag Xmas’ took place in Thessaloniki. The event was admission-free. It was co-organized by Thessaloniki Pride and Rainbow Families, two civil society organizations known for their contribution to the fight against homophobic hatred and racial prejudice. The event was the practical application of a project by a group of DCCMI’s third-year students, and as such it was supported by DCCMI. DCCMI embraces educational activities linked to educational actions and contemporary pedagogies of inclusion as stated in the department’s relevant curriculum. This activity was carried out within the framework of a course which explores pedagogical approaches. The department supports the faculty members’ actions both in the framework of academic freedom and in the framework of exploring and experimenting with new methods and approaches related to cultural, artistic and pedagogical practice. The above exploration is an integral part of the department’s orientation.

 

DCCMI provides interdisciplinary education on issues related to culture and practices of cultural production in contemporary environments. The rationale and necessity of this action is informed by contemporary cultural and pedagogical theories that express the interdisciplinary articulation of knowledge. Readings of fairy tales by drag queens with educational and cultural aims are widely carried out in many countries of the world. A similar action was carried out in Greece in 2019 in the framework of the Athens & Epidaurus Festival (Drag Queen Story Hour). As befits a university department of culture, DCCMI supports the action ‘Drag queens read Christmas fairy tales / Drag Xmas’ in order to contribute to the empowerment of artistic expression, the promotion of inclusion and the respect of diversity. Besides, DCCMI considers academic freedom, the scientific validity of modern pedagogies, and the connection with society as non-negotiable, established rights of the public university. DCCMI intends to take all necessary measures to safeguard academic freedom and security and to protect students, teaching staff, and the wider academic community from racist, homophobic and transphobic attacks. The present statement is strongly endorsed by the Gender Equality and Anti-Discrimination Committee of the University of Thessaly, which attends to similar issues.