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 2021/22

Contact details

 Contact usClick here
Coordinator: Prof. Almira Ousmanova
Website
Facebook page
Games and Scholars web
Games and Scholars Facebook page

Activities 2014-2019

Scientific publications

  • 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

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)
  • Not Looking at Anything (curated by A.Ousmanova and R.Vashkevich, Minsk – Moscow, 2015);
  • 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).

Academic partners

Non-academic partners:

  • National Gallery of Art  (Vilnius, Lithuania, Chief Curator – Lolita Jablonskienė)
  • ERSTE Stiftung (Austria)
  • Open Society Institute (Hungary)
  • Goethe Institut in Lithuania and in Belarus
  • French Institute in Lithuania
  • French Embassy in Belarus
  • Art-magazine pARTisan.mag (editor-in-chief – T. Arcimovich)
  • Gallery of Contemporary Art “Y” (Minsk)
  • Performative practices platform ‘ZERNE” (Belarus)
  • Art platform “Art-Activist” (Belarus)