Location: University of Amsterdam, University Library (Chirurgisch Theater)
Registration: here
Credits: 2 or 3 ECTS

This conference invites an intermedial reflection on the development of modes of reading and seeing in relation to constraints of production and distribution. We welcome contributions on subjects ranging from a medium’s early stages of development up to the present digital world, while addressing issues of readability, narrativity, interactivity, and/or materiality. How did new ludic modes of seeing develop from scientific observation to artistic production? What techniques did artists develop to increase the readability of their medium? How did they negotiate the tensions between originality and standardization? What new visual norms were established along the way?

Bringing together scholars and practitioners, the conference aims to understand how popular media art contributed to the ludification of vision, training our eyes to see in playful, nonlinear and equivocal ways.

Students can obtain 2 or 3 ECs for attending the entire conference and submitting one of the following assignments:

• a conference report/reflection (1000 words, pass/fail) → 2 EC
• a research paper related to the conference theme(s) (3000 words, graded) → 3 EC

Students who want to obtain ECs are required to sign up through this form.

THURSDAY MARCH 5——————————————————————–

13:00: Registration

14:00: OPENING REMARKS

14:15: OPENING KEYNOTE

1. Ludification of Vision (Mathieu Li-Goyette, UvA)

15:30: break

16h00: PLAYING WITH LINES (moderated by Toni Pape)

2.1 Drawing as Tummelplatz (Mathijs Peters, Leiden University)

2.2 Bodies in Motion in David Kunzle’s “Movement Before Movies: The Language of the Comic Strip” (Ian Horton, University of the Arts London)

FRIDAY MARCH 6————————————————————————–

9:30: WORKSHOP (moderated by Mathieu Li-Goyette)

3.1 Playful Lines from Reed and Steel – On Töpffer’s Use of Drawing Tools (Gunnar Krantz, Malmö University)

10:45: break

11:00: CHILDISH EXPECTATIONS (moderated by Rik Spanjers)

4.1 Platinum Age Comics: Ludification or Knockabout Fun? (Jakob Dittmar, Malmö University)

4.2 Understanding Tableaux: R.F. Outcault and the Documentary Image (Josh Kopin, Haverford College)

4.3 Having a Dickens of a Time: Evoking the Playfulness of Real and Fictional Producers in Children’s Comics (John Miers, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam / Kingston University)

12:30: lunch

14:00: PAPERWARE (moderated by Toni Pape)

5.1 “This is not a playhouse”: Unplayable Games in Chris Ware’s Building Stories (Elizabeth Moulin, Sorbonne Université)

5.2 Chris Ware’s Counter-Archeology of Comics (Yasco Horsman, Universiteit Leiden)

15:00: break

15:30: WHO DOES IT? (moderated by Erin La Cour)

6.1 Look Here, Not There: De/Familiarizing Horror in American Horror Story: Murder House Through Anamorphism (Serkan Kasapoglu, UvA)

6.2 Paul Annett’s The Beast Must Die: Filmic Whodunits and the Intermedial Interactivity of Mystery-Solving (Thomas Filteau, Université de Montréal)

17:00: Borrel @ Lambiek

SATURDAY MARCH 7——————————————————————–

9:30: WORKSHOP (moderated by Rik Spanjers)

7.1 Pixelated Panels, Glitched Bodies: Multimodal Annotation and Black Aesthetics in Robb Armstrong’s JumpStart (Justin Wigard, University of North Dakota)

10:45: break

11:00: DIGITAL READING (moderated by Erin La Cour)

8.1 From Zines to Netflix: Intermedial Playfulness in Zerocalcare’s Storytelling (Silvia Vari, University of Warwick)

8.2 The Playful Gaze: Digital Comics and the Reconfiguration of Reading (Giorgio Busi Rizzi, Universiteit Gent)

12:00: lunch

13:30: MAKING IT WORK (moderated by Toni Pape)

9.1 Construction Animators Through the Periodical Press: Movable Cutouts in European Children’s Magazines (Eva Van de Wiele, Universiteit Gent)

9.2 Gamebooks and Comics: Ludifying the Page (Aaron Kashtan, UNC Charlotte)

14:30: break

14:45: CLOSING KEYNOTE
10. The Knowledge Codex (Ilan Manouach, Université de Liège)

16:00: CLOSING REMARKS

Aren’t modes of reading also modes of seeing?