The New Everyday Conference

Friday, October 2, 2009, 10 am – 5 pm

The New Everyday Unconference

This event is a concluding “unconference” to the NYU Visual Culture Working Group and its predecessors. The goal is to establish a set of small working groups on the theme of The New Everyday that will continue the project in more focused fashion.

In both visual culture and cultural studies, the everyday has been a central and motivating topic/theoretical insight. However, it is clear that the “everyday” of Michel de Certeau and the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies no longer exists in quite the same way. Surveillance cameras make walking an object of police investigation, while barcodes track our shopping. Subcultures are not only commodified by the likes of MTV but actively promoted.

So this event sets out to ask: what are the terms of the new everyday, given the financial crisis, the recession, climate change, the Web 2.0 and the permanent counterinsurgency? What are the tactics of the new everyday? What methodological approaches does it imply for visual and cultural studies?

NYU Visual Culture Working Group
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor
www.theneweveryday.com