2nd International Symposium on Women in Audiovisual Culture

Audiovisual culture is a multilayered field at the center of women's practices of producing, transforming, and resisting gender identities. Women are constantly interacting with gender norms through media and audiovisual texts. This symposium addresses women's representations, power dynamics, and counter-narrative strategies in audiovisual culture from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Women's relationship with media representations is not limited to remaining in the position of a passive spectator; on the contrary, women can develop practices of resistance by critically interpreting these representations and producing alternative narratives. For example, Laura Mulvey's theory of the “male gaze”, Judith Butler's approaches to the performative nature of gender, and Bell Hooks' critique of the representation of marginalized identities constitute an important point of reference. Gayatri Spivak's concepts of “sub-representation” and “silence” and Luce Irigaray's critical approaches to language and representations are noteworthy in examining women's subjectivization processes within a broader theoretical framework. In light of similar approaches, how women question, criticize, and transform social norms will be discussed.

Digital platforms have created new spaces where women construct their narratives, challenge gender norms, and redefine their strategies of subjectivation. These mediums offer a dynamic environment where women's visibility strategies and resistance practices are produced. In this context, the performative presentation of gender on digital platforms also brings along women's visibility strategies and practices of producing counter-hegemonic narratives. The performative presentation of gender on such platforms and how these platforms transform gender politics is one of the main problematics of this symposium.

However, the manipulative impact of audiovisual culture on women does not mean that women are merely passive viewers or vulnerable to the effects of these images. Women have the power to critically interpret, reject, or reinterpret audiovisual representations. To read Donna Haraway's “cyborg” metaphor, women engage in the construction of an identity that transcends traditional gender norms and biological identities. In this context, women's strategies of producing alternative identities and representations in audiovisual culture create a space of critique where the boundaries between identity and body are blurred, resisting the fixed norms of gender.

Audiovisual culture, of course, also has the power to determine how women are located in social memory and spatial representations. Especially in the light of Feminist spatial theories and memory studies, women's representations in public space and their impact on cultural memory should be examined. The representation of women in the public and private sphere, the historical and social conditions under which these representations are produced, and how women reconstruct their spatial identities will be among the discussion areas of the symposium.

To summarize, this symposium aims to bring together all studies that question, criticize and reconstruct the place of women in audiovisual culture and to reevaluate the potential of women to develop an alternative discourse in visual culture within the framework of feminist theories. With this aim, issues, conflicts, approaches, opportunities and threats related to women in culture will be discussed.

It is open to all participants; artists, researchers, academics, creators, who want to share their thoughts and findings on audiovisual culture, which reproduces gender roles with its dynamics that shape and reflect social behavior norms, perceptions and attitudes, and at the same time direct them, to make the invisible visible. We look forward to meeting at the “2nd International Symposium on Women in Audiovisual Culture” with the following topics and titles.

Being Visible is Not Enough!

Women's alternative narrative production practices and digital activism on digital platforms (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Podcasts, etc.)

Aesthetic Rebellion: Women's Signature in Art

Women's invisible labor in art and media production and processes of cultural restructuring

Women in the Frame of Daily Life: Redefining Representation

Women's dynamic and resistant relations with audiovisual representations in everyday life

Narratives Crossing Borders with Digital Media Activism!

The global impact of digital feminist activism and the reconstruction of gender identities by digital platforms

The Power of the Image: How Representations of Women Transform Social and Cultural Narratives

Socio-cultural and political effects of representations of women

They are not only visible, they are transforming!

The transformative power of women activists on audiovisual culture and examples

Whose Memory? Memory Spaces of Cultural Heritage and Women

Opportunities for women to shape a gender perspective in cultural heritage and memory policies

The gaze is ours! Norms and Debates on the Representation of the Female Body!

Questioning social norms on the representation of the female body and eye/ gaze regimes

The Commercialization of the Image: Representations of Women and Bright Traps in Post-Feminist Media

The commodification of the female image in post-feminist media and the dilemmas created by these images

Battles of Subjectivity: The Construction of Identities in Visual Culture Beyond Biopolitical and Technological Norms

Discussions and possibilities for the construction of female subjectivity in audiovisual culture by transcending its biopolitical and technological boundaries

Space and Women: Who Determines the Status of Women in Representations of Public and Private Space?

Questioning the dynamics of women's representations of public and private space

Discourse Wars: Women in Popular Culture, Struggle for Identity and Ideology

The ideological struggle of gender discourses in audiovisual culture for the past, present, and future

Reorganizing Meaning: Transforming Symbols and Metaphors in Audiovisual Culture

Women's meaning-making processes through symbols and metaphors in audiovisual culture