Dr Ignaz Cassar

Teaching

BA L2 'Patterns of Perception'

Conferences

2011

‘Skiagraphical Strategies and the Dynamics of the Secret’; tri-annual conference of the International Association of Word and Image Studies ‘The Imaginary’, Université du Québec à Montréal, Québec
‘The Bureaucracy of a Space: The Studio in the Modern Research University’; annual conference of the College Art Association, New York City, USA

2010

‘The Imaginary of the Darkroom’; annual conference of the International Visual Sociology Association ‘Thinking, Doing and Presenting Visual Research: The State of the Field?’, University of Bologna, Italy
‘The Image of, or in, Sublation’; conference ‘Old Media/New Work: Obsolete Technologies & Contemporary Art’, Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster, London, England
‘Performing in Camera’; guest lecture, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England
‘Casting Inversion: Freud’s Psychoanalysis and the Photographic Negative’; annual conference of the Northeast Modern Language Association, McGill University, Montreal, Québec

2009

‘Imagining the Image: The Aesthetics of Latency’; conference ‘The Aesthetic Dimension of Visual Culture’, Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, Czech Republic
‘Visual Methods/Practical Turns: The Institutions of Practice and their Rhetorics’; conference ‘Visual Methods’, University of Leeds, England

2008

‘Anxieties of the Latent: Liminalities, Trauma and the Politics of Representation in Atom Egoyan’s Ararat’; symposium ‘21st Century Anxiety’, Nottingham Institute for Research in Visual Culture, University of Nottingham, England
‘States of Latency: Photography, Trauma and Memory in Atom Egoyan’s Ararat’; conference ‘Trauma and the Sublime’, University of Swansea, Wales

2007

‘Viewed from Behind: The Image’s Doppelgänger’; conference ‘Screen/Space: The Projected Image in Contemporary Art’, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
‘Showing Expectations: Curating, Authorship, and the Practices of Institutional Policies’; symposium ‘Chances and Challenges’, University of Leeds, England
‘In the Pandemonium of Image – Derek Jarman’s Blue’; annual conference of the College Art Association, New York City, USA

2006

‘Declining Images: The Amnesia of Photography’; congress ‘The Afterlife of Memory: Historia, Memoria, Amnesia’, Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History, University of Leeds, England
‘Suspended Zones’; conference ‘Photography and the City’, Clinton Institute for American Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland
‘At the Limits of the Visual’; annual conference of the Association of Art Historians ‘Art & Art History: Contents. Malcontents. Discontents’, University of Leeds, England

Research interests

Dr Cassar’s research interests include modern art theory, the historiography of art and photography, lens-based media practice and theory, psychoanalytic and poststructuralist thought. Current research activity concentrates on three strands: photography and the phenomenology of its ‘obsolete’ technology in the context of digitality; modern art theory and its relation to art practice; the dynamics between educational politics, knowledge economy and art practice. Several articles addressing aspects of these problematics have been published in peer-reviewed journals.

 

With the support of the Shpilman Institute’s research program he presently develops a project titled ‘The Imaginary of the Darkroom’, which seeks to explore the affective dimensions of the photographic darkroom at a time of its obsolescence.

Selected publications

‘The Image of, or in, Sublation’, Philosophy of Photography 1:2 (2010), pp.201-15.
‘The Open Book of the Humanities’, new formations 69 (2010), pp.171-74.
‘Towards a Criticality in the Now’, Journal of Visual Arts Practice 8:3 (2009), pp.229-40.
‘The Self, the Slash, the Image’, Photography & Culture 2:1 (2009), pp.103-6.
‘How to use Parasites: Notes on Contemporary Art, Curating and the Work of the Context’, parallax 14:4 (2008), pp.30-41.
‘Inverted Visions’ (editorship), parallax 14:2 (2008). Contributors: Victor Burgin, Tim Dean, Nicola Foster, Roshanak Kheshti, Miglena Nikolchina, Adrian Rifkin, Lee Rodney, Will Straw, Nick Thurston, Pasi Väliaho.
‘Envisioning Inversion’, parallax 14:2 (2008), pp.1-6.
‘Viewed from Behind: The Projected Image and its Doppelgänger’, parallax 14:2 (2008), pp.115-25.