Visual Studies Platform (VSP) is a cross-disciplinary initiative designed to explore and propose innovative approaches to research and teaching visual imagery in the digital century. It encompasses research on visual theory, method and history with a strong emphasis on digital cultures, film and iconology across different media forms. VSP engages with theories and practices of analogue and digital image-making as well as interpretation through a web of interrelated activities, including thematic colloquia, workshops, summer school programs, and cross-departmental courses.
Visual Studies Platform is introduced by
Vlad Naumescu (Sociology and Anthropology Department, CEU)
Oksana Sarkisova (OSA Archivum, CEU, Verzio IHRDFF)
György E. Szőnyi (Departments of History and Medieval Studies, CEU)
Éva Fodor (Institute for Advanced Studies, Gender Department, CEU)
Guest Speaker
Béla Tarr (film director, Film Factory, founding director)
Dignity of the Image
Béla Tarr is acclaimed as one of the world’s most original contemporary authors. He directed his first feature film, Family Nest (Családi tűzfészek, 1977) at the age of 22. This film, along with The Outsider (Szabadgyalog, 1981) and The Prefab People (Panelkapcsolat, 1982), focuses on the social issues and is made using documentary style. His TV adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1982), which he filmed in just two shots, announced a new phase in his creative work. In the mid-1980s, he started a collaboration with László Krasznahorkai, whose works became the basis of Damnation (Kárhozat, 1988), Satan’s Tango (Sátántangó, 1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister harmóniák, 2000). His next film, The Man from London (A londoni férfi, 2007) is based on the novel by Georges Simenon. The Turin Horse (A torinói ló, 2011), which he announced as the last film he will make, was presented at the Berlin Film Festival, and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize – the Silver Bear, as well as the FIPRESCI Prize. In 2012, in cooperation with leading international film artists, Tarr founded film factory program within the Sarajevo Film Academy of the University Sarajevo School of Science and Technology with the aspiration to design a comprehensive educational program serving a new generation of filmmakers (filmfactory.ba).
“While there are more and more images everywhere around us, paradoxically, we perceive the increasing devaluation of this beautiful language every day. It is in this context that we are seeking to demonstrate, emphatically and convincingly, the importance of visual culture and the dignity of the image to the coming generation of filmmakers.”
Béla Tarr
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