NEXT EDITION AND SCOPIO & CONTRAST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Authors: Leão Neto Pedro 
Published: February 2024

With this Open Call "Exploring contemporary realities", we launch the annual major theme of interest for scopio Magazine AAI – Visual Spaces of Change: Exploring contemporary realities, Volume 2, and initiate a new collaboration with the project Contrast: Multidisciplinary network of artistic initiatives in Art, Architecture, Design and Photography through SCOPIO & CONTRAST International Conference.
The call will have as responsible Editors academics / artists coming from both scopio Magazine AAI and the Contrast project. This editorial team will ensure the necessary peer review work through the U. Porto OJS platform.
scopio Magazine AAI will be, in this way, the official publishing academic periodical for International Conference SCOPIO & CONTRAST and the submissions are both for the Conference and its 2nd volume in partnership with Contrast addressing the theme Exploring contemporary realities.
Abstracts for conference presentation will be published in the e-book of abstracts of the SCOPIO & CONTRAST International Conference, which will have also the program and will be accessible and free to download through scopio Magazine AAI and Contrast platforms at the time of the event.
Subsequent publication of the most relevant (expanded – full manuscripts) contributions will be published in section Exploring contemporary realities of scopio Magazine AAI ], Volume 2.
The present call aims to explore the use of photography and other means of visual representation as forms of artistic research, documentation, and analysis of different configurations on the transformation of the physical environment and how it is understood and shaped by a diverse field of study, practices and cultures. This means, besides other things, to better understand through photography and film the relationship between culture and space and explore how culture, beliefs, behaviours, and practices, interacts with and shape the physical environment of different territories and their architectures, cities and landscapes, as well as to acknowledge contemporary discourses and usages of landscape concepts1.
Social transformations are linked to changes in the inhabited place, and recent history has revealed the speed with which space changes. These transformations have been so radical that regular documentation about the impermanence of the place has become urgent. In fact, places are uncertain spaces and to represent them visually is to preserve their understanding, recent life experiences such as the gentrification of large cities or the health crisis have imposed profound changes on contemporary life models and, consequently, allowed the creation of previously unthinkable photographs. This is where the “Exploring contemporary realities” is located, artistic projects and documentary projects that operate from the expanded field of architecture, art and design from its actual materialization to the experiences of the place; exploring different levels of privacy, scales and urban landscapes. Focusing also on the exploration of the discursive space that operates in broader systems: sociocultural, political, historical and even technical.
If we accept the image as a kind of visual language2, disseminated and received in different geographic points, this call extends this dialogue, opening up to the integration of different looks of cultural identities from other regions, places and countries; the specificity of the place as a way to increase our understanding of society and the territory. The objective is to encourage the use of images for the construction of artistic projects that promote critical views on the transformation of the physical environment as a result of the way they are perceived and experienced in their multiple facets. In summary, the aim is to take advantage of the current role of the image as a way of expanding knowledge with a particular focus on photography, recognized as a privileged means of expression and research for the understanding of architecture and urban landscapes and for the construction of the imaginary; between document and fiction; reproduction and manipulation; analogue and digital visual representation as a means of crossing different disciplines, blurring artistic boundaries.
The call is interested in the construction of artistic projects and theoretical essays using photography and film as a way of communicating the experience of space, questioning how people live and work, as well as architectural practices and urban landscapes. We want to encourage students and researchers to develop projects that are not limited to documenting and describing reality, but to deepen knowledge that enhance the construction of more effective and meaningful ways of understanding our relationships with the territory, even anticipating a possible future. It is intended to develop visual essays based on conceptually and artistically strong photographic artistic practices.
We are open to submissions that explore photographic representation as an artistic research tool, both in theoretical work and in field work, in all its possible and complex artistic visions. We want to awaken the interest of authors in the areas of architecture, art and design encouraging the creation of photographic series that explore new frontier paradigms, which can contribute to the critical analysis of the dynamics of physical and social transformation, understanding architecture and urban landscape as living and inclusive organisms.
The organization of the international conference will integrate members coming from scopio Magazine AAI Editorial team and the Contrast project, reinforcing in this way the network of multidisciplinary artistic initiatives in Art, Architecture, Design and Photography.