Almira Ousmanova (Ph.D. in Philosophy) is Professor at the Department of Media at the European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania).

Research interests: Genealogy and Methodology of Visual Studies, Gender Representations in Visual Arts, Soviet cinema, Art and Politics.

She is an author of Umberto Eco: paradoxes of interpretation (2000); editor of several collective volumes: Anthology of Gender Theory (ed., with Elena Gapova, 2000); Gender Histories from Eastern Europe (co-edited with Elena Gapova and Andrea Peto); Bi-Textuality and Cinema (ed., 2003); Gender and Transgression in Visual Arts (ed., 2007), Visual (as) Violence (ed., 2008); Belarusian Format: Invisible Reality (ed., 2008.); Feminism and Philosophy (ed., special volume of journal Topos, 2010); TechnoLogos: the social effects of bio- and information technologies (ed., with Tatyana Shchyttsova, special volume of journal Topos, 2014). She is an editor-in-chief of a book series in Visual and Cultural Studies (EHU Press, Vilnius).

Lena Prents is an art historian and curator. Her work focuses on the interrelation of art and exhibition practice in connection with socio-political discourses. Primary research interests: contemporary art, history of architecture, art and culture in Eastern Europe under state socialism. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation on socialist modernist architecture in contemporary art.

Projects (selected):

»Blue Box«, curator

»Going Public: On the difficulty of a public statement«: a project on the art in public space in Belarus, Lithuania, Kaliningrad and Germany, developed for the Goethe Institut, project concept and artistic director:

»West of East« in the Gallery for Contemporary Art Ў, Minsk;
in the frame of the transnational project Europe (to the power of)n:

Texts & Publications (selected):

Texts for the exhibition »Ludmila Rusava. A Total Performance« (curated by Tatiana Arcimovich), October 2015, Gallery for Contemporary Art Ў, Minsk;
»Unofficial Art in Belarus, 1980-1995«, a book of essays written by students and professors at the EHU, editor and author (in preparation);
»The Notion of Art and the Curatorial. Toward the Prospective History of Curatorship in Belarus«, in: Curatorial Lab. Polish-Belarusian Exchange of Knowledge, Poznan, 2015;
»On Cosmonauts, Female Swimmers and Pregnant Hares: Soviet Mosaics in Tbilisi«, in: Lapiashvili, Sophia / Palavandishvili, Nini for GeoAIR (Ed.), Lost Heroes of Tbilisi. Soviet Period Mosaics, Tbilisi, 2014, pp. 39-47;
»Slab Samples and Narrative Patterns. Remembrance, Identity and Autobiography in Works of Contemporary Art Dealing with Socialist Modernism«, in: Between Rejection and Appropriation. The Architectural Heritage of Socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. by GWZO Leipzig, 2014, pp. 214-229;

»West of East«, in: The Europen Book, ed. by Barbara Steiner, jovis Verlag Berlin, 2013, pp. 44-56;

»Architektur der Nachkriegsmoderne im Fokus zeitgenössischer Kunst« (Architecture of Post-War Modernism in Contemporary Art Works), in: Und der Zukunft zugewandt. Potsdam und der gebaute Sozialismus, ed. by Metropolar, Potsdam, 2011, pp. 136-145.

»Value, Work & Business: Where is Art?«, in: Aleksander Komarov: Estate. Oslo, 2010, editor and author, pp. 89-95.

Andrei Gornykh is Professor of the Department of Media at the  European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania).

Qualifications: 1999 – Ph.D in Philosophy (Saint Petersburg State University, Russia). Title of the dissertation: «The Problem Of Text: From Poetics to Anthropology» (Russian Formalism, Anglo-American New Criticism, French New Criticism)

Research fields: Critical Theory, Psychoanalysis, Cultural and Visual Studies

Main publications:

Monographs:

• 2013 Media and Society. EHU Press. (in Russian) ISBN 978-9955-773-59-7. 402 p. (in Russian/English)

• 2003 Formalism: From Structure to Text and Beyond, Minsk: Logvinov. 302 p. (in Russian) ISBN 985-6701-08-2

Selected articles:

• Reality of the Snaff // Sinij Divan. Moscow, #1, 2016. “Nostalgia for European Home: Tarkovsky’s Debt and Debts” in E. Tsymbal ed. Tarkovsky and Contemporary Russian Culture (Moscow), 2014. (in Russian)

• “Capitalism and Anxiety” in Topos (Minsk) # 2 (2013), pp. 23-48. (in Russian)

• “Imprinted Lost Time of Andrei Tarkovsky” in Neprikosnovennyi Zapas (Moscow) # 6 (2012), pp. 46-61. (in Russian)

• “Social poetics of Tarkovsky’s cinema” in Translit (Saint Petersburg) # 10 (2012), pp. 62-72. (in Russian)

• “The Instance of the Letter in Tarkovsky’s psychobiography” in Topos (Minsk) # 3 (2011), pp. 74-92. (in Russian)

• From YouTube to RuTube – or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love All Tubes // YouTube Reader. Stockholm, National Library of Sweden, 2009. (in English)

• Visual Anthropology: to See Himself as Other in Anthropological Forum (Saint-Petersburg) 2008, pp. 382-404. (in Russian)

• “Aesthetics of Internet and Visual Consumption. On the RuNet’s essence and specificity” in Control + Shift. Public and private usages of the Russian Internet. Gornykh A., Ousmanova A. (Norderstedt, 2006), pp. 198-214. (in English)

Multimedia works:

• 2011 -- DVD-ROM “Television: Production of knowledge”

• 2010 – DVD-ROM “History, Society, Cinema: representation of WW II in the Soviet cinema”2006 – CD-ROM “Lines of difference in the history of art”

• 2005-2006 – TV series “The invisible city” and “The culture of consumption” for Belarus TV (author, director)

Yuliya is a lecturer of the Department of Media at the European Humanities University. Having obtained MA in Visual and Cultural Studies with a particular focus on visual semiotics, she has been teaching semiotics and the theory of advertising to BA students since 2009.

Her main research interests include visual semiotics, semiotics of power, and cultural theory of advertising. Her current PhD research aims at conceptualizing an underdeveloped field of semiotics of power with a special focus on both structuralist and poststructuralist contribution to the field.

Main publications:

• (2012) Public service advertising as an instrument of loyalties formation) // Вестник Института социологии [Vestnik Instituta Sociologii]. 2012. № 4. Pp. 182-196

• (2013) Social advertising as a means of promoting governmental policies in the post-Soviet era: how much have things changed? (the case of Belarus). In: BALOCKAITE, RASA, ed., Understanding Late Soviet Period in the 21st Century: Reflections on History, Ecology, Economics and Art. Cambridge Scholars Publishing (forthcoming).

• (2013) The Transformation of the idea of political participation: Rousseau, Rancier, Laclau. Topos, №3 (2013). Postmodern subject and political action. Topos, №1

• (2014). Teaching semiotics as adventure: Transformative approach in an online semiotic course. In: Minenkov, G., Puptsev, A. (eds.) Distance learning development: problems and perspectives.

• Book review: «E.Laclau. The Rhetorical foundations of society. London: Verso.» Topos №1 (2015).

Curator, audiovisual artist, researcher of digital culture, new media and interactive art practices. Graduate of MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) course at Glasgow School of Art. In 2015 received Bachelor Degree at European Humanities University in 'Visual Culture and Creative Industries'. The author of several audiovisual installations, short films, and art-projects.

Recent projects include I raised up this rule, lying flat on my opposable digit, and I ate it, Tontine Building, CCA. Glasgow, UK; exhibition-symposium In/Human: the Body as Resource supported by The Hunterian, Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, UK;  exhibition A Random Piece of Someone, Glasgow School of Art, Tontine. In 2015 curated research-exhibitions: Critical Assemblage: people and atoms (Contemporary art gallery 'Y', Minsk, Belarus) and Roland Barthes: key words (Art gallery 'TSECH', Minsk, Belarus), worked as coordinator of international conferences and projects dedicated to visual and cultural studies.  In 2014 coordinated Belarusian-Lithuanian no-budget film festival toKino in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Personal and research interests: audiovisual installations, synaesthesia, media-art, corporeality and affect theory, contemporary art, history and theory of film, astrophysics, poetry.

Aliaksandra Ihnatovich is an independent filmmaker, curator, media activist and visual culture researcher. In her work she is mainly seeking alternatives for cinematic representation and examines critical potential of documentary filmmaking.  Primary research and activist interests: documentary filmmaking, subversive images and narratives, alternative social movements, gender representations and queer in culture and cinema.  Aliaksandra is a holder of Master Degree in Sociology of European Humanities University (specialization “Visual and Cultural Studies”).

Projects:

2015 - Meta- Queer Film and Animation Festival, co-organizer, film selector (Belarus)

2014 - Luksuz Film Festival, program director (Slovenia)

2011 – 2014 - Sociocultural and educational project LitPro (Lithuania), project director

2013 - Belarusian and Lithuanian No Budget Film Festival “toKino”, festival concept, programme director

2012 - Project “Development of Gender Sensitivity as a Prerequisite for Gender Equality in Belarus (Hrodna, Minsk and Vitebsk regions)”, audiovisual group tutor (feminist documentary “The Dress” production curator)

2011 – Project on history of Lithuanian cinema «Lithuania/Soviet Cinema: Reconstruction», project concept, coordinator

2009 – 2011 - Art-social project for children with psychophysical disabilities “Children’s Dreams” (Belarus), project concept and coordinator

Selected Filmography:

2015 – “Tomorrow Comes Today”, Lithuania, art documentary video

2014 – “XYX”, Slovenia, video art, experimental documentary

              “Hrana Anarh” (Food Anarchy), Slovenia, documentary

2012 – “The Dress”, Belarus, feminist documentary

2012 – “Save It For The Morning After”, Slovenia, experimental documentary

Selected Publications:

“Gender Space/Urban Space” for Minsk Urban Platform, 2015 ()

“Edible Urbanism: Community Gardens and Food-Sharing Practices in the City” for Minsk Urban Platform, 2015

“Transgender Subjectivity and Cinema: the Experience of Transgression or the Experience of Borderline” / Journal Topos, Topos № 3(25) 2010 (Belarusian language)

I am both an academic and a photography critic: I work on bridging the gap between the university and creative practices. I graduated from the Lomonosov Moscow State University (1997, Philological Faculty) and in 2000 defended the kandidat nauk degree (Russian equiv. of the PhD). Currently I am an invited Dozent at the EHU (Vilnius) and an independent researcher (Moscow).

Main courses (taught in academic and non-university environments): Photography Theory and History; Visual Studies and Analyzis, Current Tendencies in Photography; Criticism, Cultural Analytics and Public Intellectual Work; Theories and Practices of Creativity; Fiction on the Border Between Text and Image. 

My main research fields: early modern culture and Photography.

Academic interests: photography theory and phototherapy; hybrid genres and modern media; visual studies and art history; literary and critical theory; affect theory, trauma studies and history of emotions; humanities 'on the border' (w/ art therapy, psychoanalysis, Jungian analysis, neuroscience); theories of fiction and imagination; myth; intellectual history. 



I was a staff writer at Kommersant (Moscow) and have worked as a freelance journalist and editor. I have written for magazines Iskusstvo (Art), Vlast/Power; Культура/Kultura, The ArtNewspaper (Moscow), newspapers Moscow News, Kommersant-daily; Vremia Novostei; Izvestia, online media Calvert Magazine, polit.ru; russ.ru, BBC Russia; photography media Fotofond, photographer.ru, Fototekhnika and Videokamery, PhotoArt etc. 

Viktoriya Kanstantsiuk is a lecturer of the Department of Media at the European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania). She holds BA in Culturology from Belarusian State University (Faculty of Philosophy and Social Science, Minsk, Belarus, 2001); in 2004 she graduated from PhD program in History and Theory of Culture (Faculty of Philosophy, European Humanities University (Minsk, Belarus). Her PhD dissertation’s preliminary title is «Mechanisms of mediation in YouTube in the prospect of social and critical theory» (in progress). Research interests: Visual and Cultural Anthropology, Media Anthropology, Post-Marxism, Psychoanalysis, New Media. Courses: Genealogy of Media, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Psychoanalysis and Culture, Cartographic Optics: from Geographical to Online Maps, Theory of Visual Culture.

Main publications:

 “Media/Net Mediation as Social Mediation» (in Topos, 2014);                                                                                  

«Mediation: Methodological Topicality of Psychoanalytical-(post)Marxist Synthesis in the Understanding of Media “(in Topos, 2013);

 “Decoded Visual Streams: Capitalism and YouTube” (in Topos, 2012);

 “YouTube: Desire in Media and Seriality” (in  International Journal of Cultural Research (2012);

“Freud and Lacan as Media Theorists, or What Media Can Say About Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalysis - About Media” (in Topos, 2011) and others. 

Elena is a head of the BA program Theory and practices of contemporary art and  a lecturer of the Department of History  at the European Humanities University.

Primary research interests: history and theory of art, contemporary art, visual and cultural studies. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation on methodological basis and strategies of art history teaching.

Main courses:

Phenomenon of the classical, History of art: from the Renaissance to the Modern art, History of art: XX century

Selected articles:​​

• Тоусцiк А. Iканаграфiя працы. Прыклад калгаснiцы. Накiд панэлi-таблiцы для атлясу Мнемазыны. Толстик Е. Иконография труда. Случай Колхозницы. Набросок панели-таблицы для атласа Мнемозины. // pARTisan  №32, 2016, ISBN 978-985-7140-34-3

• «Everyday Life of the Avant-Garde and the Avant-Garde of Everyday Life in Belarus», «Повседневность авангарда и авангард повседневности в Беларуси»// Сборник статей по результатам симпозиума Опыты авангарда: от утопии к практикам повседневности, Екатеринбург, EАСИ, 2016, ISBN 978-5-904440-44-2

• «Арт-нулевые в Беларуси. Эскиз к портрету»// «Радиус нуля. Онтология арт-нулевых».2000-2010, Минск, Издательство И.П. Логвинова, 2013. ISBN978-985-562-040-3

• «Репрессивный конструкт гармоничности. По фильму А. Роома «Строгий юноша».// Визуальное (как) насилие. Сборник научных трудов/ отв. ред.  Усманова А.Р.—Вильнюс, ЕГУ, 2007

• “Phenomenology of vision. Cinematographic experience”, «Феноменология видения. Кинематографический опыт.» // Топос. Философско-культурологический журнал, 2007, №2 (16).

Mainly I identify myself as a teacher in digital as 1) I have designed approximately a dozen of digital courses and 2) even if it is a course about classic sociology it is at least digitally related.

Degrees: 2 bachelor’s, 1.5 master’s, currently unfinished PhD Work experience: four years in the sphere of education + one year in a media production + huge amount of various publications.

E-learning: design of syllabuses, design of online courses in the digital environment.

Academic background: critical theory, social theory Main research topics: digital culture, ICT, network society, informationalism, ecosystems, digital democracy, digital surveillance.