Dr. Bob Bednar, Associate Professor of Communitcations Studies, will deliver the first lecture of the Spring 2017 Representations lecture series.

 

Tuesday, January 24th. 12:15pm. FAC 235

 

Moving Pictures: The Lives of Photographs of the Dead at Roadside Car Crash Shrines

 

Abstract:

This presentation analyzes the role of digitally-produced photographic portraits of the dead at roadside shrines, vernacular memorial assemblages built by individuals at sites where family or friends have died in car accidents.


Whether material or digital, photographs are used to virtually connect people by bridging gaps in both space and time. In the contemporary media environment, the digital platforms for sharing photographs have proliferated. Across them all, the paradoxical relationship of photography to materiality, virtuality, and affect continues to persist. This is particularly the case with pictures of the dead, which function to make the absent present, and which simultaneously make possible and serve as the interface for ongoing relationships between the dead and the alive.


With words and images drawn from extensive fieldwork on roadside shrines, Professor Bednar argues that shrine portraits are not only representations but visually and tactilely signifying objects that have lives separate from but connected to the people they represent. He shows how these portraits become “moving pictures” in multiple ways: they move people emotionally as they move through space and time through the multiple channels of new media as well as “old” media, keeping the dead alive as they themselves die as objects.

 

Feel free to bring your lunch and join us for this short glimpse into current faculty research. The talk will be followed by a Q&A. The Representations lecture series is presented by the SU Art History program. Look for more interesting topics throughout the semester.