Call for Papers: Fantasy in Reality: Architecture, Representation, Reproduction
From the capriccios of Piranesi and Canaletto to Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, Archigram’s drawings in the 1970s, and contemporary video game architecture, architectural fantasies have been produced and reproduced for centuries. On the one hand, architectural fantasies stir the imagination, represent future possibilities, and utopian dreams, on the other, they reflect and reproduce political ideologies, societal aspirations and anxieties. Though by definition, fantasy relates to that outside reality, or beyond possibility, the examples listed above engage directly with reality and they exist as realised projects in the form of architectural representations – on paper, as models, as reproductions or as digital files.
This symposium aims to consider the intersection of fantasy and reality by examining a broad range of architectural production from the middle ages to the present day across different cultures and media. It invites explorations of the often blurred lines, or tensions between fantasy and reality in architecture and its representation. This could include, the consideration of fantasy architecture in all its multi-media forms as ‘realised’, looking at the ways in which built projects are rendered fantastic through representation and reproduction, or the ways in which fantasy architecture engages with reality by highlighting society’s aspirations or anxieties.
The full call for papers can be downloaded here, proposals are welcome from postgraduate, early-career and established researchers working in all relevant disciplines.
Please send a title and an abstract of no more than 300 words together with a short CV and 100 word biography to Marie Collier (marie.collier@courtauld.ac.uk) by Thursday 26 January 2017. Successful candidates will be notified in mid-February.