This conference takes as its starting point the apparent exhaustion in much critical theory of the term 'representation' as a means of grasping the effect of the visual in contemporary times. The aim of the conference is to consider where representation and the need for a new interpretive paradigm may coalesce/intersect.

Visuality/Materiality attends to the relationship between the visual and the material as a way of approaching both the meaning of visual and its other aspects. This conference aims to provide a dialogic space where the nature and role of a visual theory can be evaluated in light of materiality, practice, affect, performativity; and where the methodological encounter informs our intellectual critique. One strand will invite sustained engagements with the theoretical trajectories of the ‘material turn’, the 'emotional/affective turn' and the 'practical turn' away from the 'cultural turn'. Where are these turns taking us, exactly? What are we leaving behind when we turn, and does that matter?

The organisers are also keen to encourage contributions based on research experience and practice into specific aspects of visuality and visual critique including:
· What is the relationship between the material and the visual?
· How do we develop new theoretical approaches to new visual practices?
· What can we learn from everyday visualities?
· How can we approach the ethical through visual practices?
· How valuable are theories of materiality, performance, embodiment in research on the visual?