Laboratory for Studies of Visual Culture and Contemporary Art

The Laboratory for Visual and Cultural Studies was founded in 1999 at the European Humanities University in Minsk by Almira Ousmanova and Andrei Gornykh. The Laboratory organizes research seminars, scientific conferences, different educational, multimedia and art-projects. After the relocation of EHU to Vilnius in 2005, Laboratory continued its activities, including research, education and art projects – in both Belarus and Lithuania. In 2013 the Laboratory merged with the Center for Studies of Contemporary Art (CSCA, managing directors Lena Prents and Aliona Glukhova), and was renamed in Laboratory for Studies of Visual Culture and Contemporary Art.

Main goals of the Laboratory

  • organization of research seminars, scientific conferences, summer schools;
  • curatorial activities in the field of contemporary art, with a special emphasis on research exhibitions;
  • publication of scientific and research books (including translations);
  • designing of academic courses on visual culture and development of educational projects in this sphere;
  • creation of educational audiovisual multimedia products (as a part of a general strategy for medialization of social and humanitarian sciences;
  • providing art and media expertise in the field ( art, film critique, etc.).

Research priorities

  • Medialization of Knowledge and Digital Humanities
  • Professional Vision and Visual Literacy in Everyday Practices and Scientific Discourses
  • Anthropological and Cognitive Aspects of Information Technologies
  • Artistic vs academic research and contemporary Visual Culture
  • Contemporary Belarusian Art in the context of East-European Transformations
  • Gamification and Cultural Change

Corresponding study programs

Team in AY 2024/25

  • Teachers:
    Prof. Almira Ousmanova, Prof. Andrei Gornykh, Prof. Ilia Inishev, associate
    professor Veronika Furs; lecturer Viktoriya Kanstantsiuk, lecturer PhD Kseniya Shtalenkova.
  • Affiliated researchers:
    Antonina Stebur (curator and researcher; EHU Cultural Studies MA program alumna)
    Tania Arcimovich (EHU Cultural Studies MA program alumna)
    Natallia Nenarokamava (EHU Cultural Studies MA program alumna)
    Viktorija Musvik (art-critic, curator, researcher)
    Anna Karpenko (curator and researcher, EHU Cultural Studies MA program alumna).

Contact details

 Contact us Click here
andrei.gornykh@ehu.lt
Coordinator: Prof. Andrei Gornykh – andrei.gornykh@ehu.lt
Website
Facebook page
Games and Scholars web
Games and Scholars Facebook page

Activities 2014-2024

Scientific publications

  • “Ludic Violence and Playful Control”, thematic volume of Topos (1/2022), edited by
    V.Konstantiuk and A.Serada – https://journals.ehu.lt/index.php/topos/issue/view/60
  • Kanstantsiuk, Viktoriya “Invisible Violence: tyranny of infinity and enjoyment in
    incremental games (on the example of the online game “Christmas Tree”, Stark Game), pp.56
    – 70 – https://journals.ehu.lt/index.php/topos/article/view/1116;
  • “Belarus in the Focus of Academic Research: A Conceptual Reset”. The thematic volume of
    Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media, Issue 22,
    2023 (edited by Almira Ousmanova and Robert Zalesky) – https://digitalicons.org/
    Ousmanova, Almira; Zalesky, Robert “Belarus in the Focus of Academic Research: A
    Conceptual Reset. Editorial”, in Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central
    European New Media, # 22, 2023, pp.i – viii (https://digitalicons.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/DI22_00_Editorial.2.pdf);
  • Ousmanova, Almira “Analog Dictatorship against Digital Multitude”, in Digital Icons:
    Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media, # 22, 2023, pp.1 – 22
    (https://digitalicons.org/issue22/analogue-dictatorship-against-digital-multitude/)
  • Stebur, Antonina and Olga Davydzik ”Features and Effects of the Digital Technologies in the
    Belarusian Protest”, in Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European
    New Media, # 22, 2023, pp.23 – 44 – https://digitalicons.org/issue22/features-and-effects-
    of-the-digital-technologies-in-the-belarusian-protest/
  • Gornykh, Andrei “TV and money flows in Belarusian authoritarianism”, Digital Icons:
    Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media, # 22, 2023, pp.99 – 114
    https://digitalicons.org/issue22/the-confluence-of-television-and-money-flows-in-belarusian-
    authoritarianism/
  • Shtalenkova, Kseniya «The Visual Significance of Money: The Value of the Immaterial».
    Logos, 2022, pp. 193–200 – http://www.litlogos.eu/L111/Shtalenkova_e.html
  • Ousmanova, Almira “The Im/mediacy of the War”, Topos, 1/2023, pp.121 – 139
    https://journals.ehu.lt/index.php/topos/article/view/1195/1021
  • Фурс, Вероника. “Особенности семиотического исследования трансмедийных
    франшиз”, Вестник Казахского национального женского педагогического
    университета. 2023;(1):60-74. – https://vestnik.kazmkpu.kz/jour/article/view/837/552
  • Фурс, Вероника. “Cемиотика вымышленных миров: идеологическая (не)однородность
    трансмедийных франшиз (на примере повествований в жанре фэнтези и историй о
    супергероях)”, Вестник Казахского национального женского педагогического
    университета. 2023;(2):71 -83 – https://vestnik.kazmkpu.kz/jour/article/view/857/560
  • Alain Fleischer Laboratories of Time ( ed. By V.Fours and A.Ousmanova, translation into Russian).Minsk, Propilei, 2014
  • Shtalenkova Ksenia Money and Ideology. R/evolution of Belarusianness in a length of 100 years. EHU, 2018
  • Topos (theme – E-Effect: Digital Turn in Humanities and Social Sciences), co-editor – Galina Orlova,) – № 1-2, 2017
  • Topos (theme – Roland Barthes’ Time), co-editor – Veronika Fours, № 1-2, 2019
  • Ousmanova A. “Opierając się obrazom: reprezentacja a rewolucja. Idea rewolucji w šwiecie post utopijnym lub powrót reprezesjionowanych”, Obóz : kwartalnik społeczno-polityczny, 56-57 (2017), pp.16 – 32
  • Ousmanova A. “Ontologies of Multitude, Capital and Digital Future: Notes on the Margins”, in Шаги/STEPS, Vol.3, # 2, 2017, pp.154 – 167
  • Ousmanova A. “E-Burned Knowledge: The Production and Dissemination of Knowledge after Digital Turn”, in Topos, 1-2/2017, pp.7 – 27
  • Ousmanova A. ‘The Poetics of the Unspeakable and “le filmique” in the works of Roland Barthes”, in Topos, Journal for Philosophy and Cultural Studies, 1-2/2019, pp.150 – 176
  • Gornykh A. Trava-Trata-Travlia: Tarkovsky’s Psychobiography à la lettre”. REFOCUS: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky (Edited by Sergei Toymentsev). Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
  • Gornykh A. “Photography as a medium: Proust’s Punctum in Lacan’s Mirror” // in Topos. Philosophical-Culturological Journal, No. 1-2, (2019). p. 117-135.
  • Gornykh A. «The movement of capital and “moving pictures”: to the genealogy of cinema» // Cinema / Capital. St. Petersburg, Seance: 2018. p. 7-29.
  • Gornykh A. “The Internal Enemy in the Information War (Donbass Ideological Palimpsest),” in Ideology and Politics. Logos and Pathos. Humanities in the Condition of War. № 3 (11), 2018. P. 148-171
  • Gornykh A. “Capitalism and Anxiety” in Topos. Philosophical-Culturological Journal, No. 2 (2013), 12-30.
  • Konstantiuk V. The Letter of Pleasure and Jouissance: Between Barthes and Lacan // Topos. 2019, iss.1-2, p. 135-144.; Discourse of the University and Fate of Knowledge in Era of Digitalization // Perekrestki. 2018, iss.1, p. 129-142;
  • Konstantiuk V. Digital Mediation and the Disappearance of Fundamental Virtuality // International Journal of Cultural Research. 2017. iss. 2(27), p. 140-146;
  • Konstantiuk V. Mapping Digital Anthropology. Book review: Digital Anthropology/ ed. By Heather A. Horst and Daniel Miller. Topos. 2017, iss. 1-2, p. 293-299.

Other publications

Organized conferences

Art, film and multimedia projects

  • Antonina Stebur and Aleksei Borisionok – curators of the art exhibition in Lithuanian
    National Art Gallery “If Disrupted, It Becomes Tangible. Infrastructures and Solidarities
    beyond the post-Soviet Condition” (March 31 st – June 18 th , 2023)
    http://new.ndg.lt/exhibitions/past/if-disrupted,-it-becomes-tangible.aspx
  • Students’ Film Festival “Retrospective. Untitled” (vols. 1 – 12, since 2010)
    https://www.instagram.com/retrospective.ehu/
  • Film! Film! Film!
    FFF! is a common space for the film community where everyone can join in exploring film
    theory and analysis and share their articles & films on the platform. The project aims to unite
    students who are into cinematography and give voice to them. At the same time Film! Film!
    Film! acts as an educational source and provides lots of theoretical information and articles
    on different topics.
  • Andrei Gornykh in TECHNODEMIA  (podcasts series by Yauheni Balinsky):
    TD#3 (1-3) Психоанализ как гуманитарная дисциплина,
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2oz__sODb8
  • TD#4 (2-3) MORGENSHTERN, свобода, Instagram
  • TD#5 TD#5 (3-3) 9 феноменов из медиа и культуры,
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCXigQOK8t0

Other events

  • Film Festivals and Film Projects: Students’ Film Festival “Retrospective. Untitled” (vols. 1 – 10, since 2010) Facebook-page, Instagram page, VK page
  • Soviet/Lithuanian Cinema: Reconstruction (Alexandra Ihnatovich, Almira Ousmanova,  LitPRO film and cultural project, (EHU,  LITHUANIA, with Alexandra Ihnatovich, 2010)
  • HESP OSI Summer and Winter Schools for University lecturers – on Visual  and Cultural Studies (14 sessions, from 2000  to 2015) – https://www.viscultstudies.org/schools
  • Museum (2011) –  a solo art exhibition of Ruslan Vashkevich in  National Art Museum in Minsk (curated by Almira Ousmanova and Ruslan Vashkevich)
  • Critical Assemblage: People and Atoms (curated by G. Orlova and N. Nenarokomova, Minsk, 2015)
  • “Roland Barthes: Keywords”, curated A.Ousmanova, N.Nenarokomova, A.Karpenko; Minsk, 2015)
  • In the framework of Artes Liberales Project  – hundreds of events  were organized in between 2012  and 2017, in Minsk ( each year, during 3 weeks, appr. 45 different events – lectures, workshops, performances, round-table discussions, exhibitions,  concerts, screenings, etc.) – more details see here

Membership in associations

  • Member of the International Association for Visual Culture Studies, which was established in 2010. Since 2010, we are also members of the European network of academic programs in visual culture (Visual Culture Studies in Europe).

Partners: