Law and the Image

The conference “Law and the Image” is organized by the National Library of Sweden together with the School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH, and the Department of Law, Gothenburg University.

Conference description

The conference “Law and the Image” aims to explore the legal and political conceptions of graphic representation in history and in the contemporary world of digital media. At a time when code is law on the Web, how are we to understand the contemporary as well as the historical relation between law and images? The conference tries to explore the changing legal and political views of graphic representations – from JPEG to photography and painting.

The purpose of the conference

The purpose is to address the different ways in which law regulates the uses of images, as well as the changing historical image of the law – both in law and literature and in other artistic practices. What happens for example in the transition from analogue to digital, and what are the legal and political implications of digitization? Digitization activities in the heritage sector, where analogue image archives becomes binary files, are a battlefield where copyright and fair use, creative commons and open source seem constantly to be renegotiated.

The conference has received generous support from the Royal Academy for the Fine Arts, the Wenner-Gren Foundations, and the Embassy of the United States of America in Stockholm.

Convenors:

Leif Dahlberg,
School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH, Stockholm
dahlberg[at]csc.kth.se

Håkan Gustafsson,
Department of Law, University of Gothenburg (Göteborgs universitet)
Hakan.Gustafsson[at]law.gu.se

Pelle Snickars,
Research Department, National Library of Sweden, Stockholm
pelle.snickars[at]kb.se