Jason Gaiger, Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia, Incidental and Integral Beauty: Duchamp, Danto and the Intractable Avant-Garde  It is widely accepted that the radical avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century abjured beauty, thereby effecting a decisive break with the art of the past. Duchamp is accorded a leading role in this process insofar as he rejected the satisfactions of ‘retinal pleasure’ in favour of an art of ideas.

Paul Wood, Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia, The idea of ‘avant-garde’ in the early 20th century  Paul Wood introduces the development of the idea of an avant-garde. He will look at what it meant in the early twentieth century and also discuss some contemporary art historical views on the avant-garde. Further Reading Francis Picabia 1879-1953 (exhibition catalogue), National Galleries of Scotland/Galerie Neuendorf Frankfurt am Main, 1988 Francis Picabia (exhibition catalogue), Musee d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2002 George Baker, The Artwork Caught By The Tail, An October Book, MIT Press, Cambs. Mass., and London 2007

Marko Daniel, Introduction  This study day explores different ideas of avant-garde art in the early twentieth century, and in contemporary practice.

Marko Daniel, Q&A Session 2  Conference video recording

Stephen Bull, Celebrities in the Street and Studio  During what could be called The Golden Age of Celebrity, from the 1920s to the 1960s, photographs of the famous were usually carefully staged in the studio. Stars were portrayed as godlike: separate from the mere mortals who worshipped them. With the arrival of paparazzi photography, celebrities came to be pictured walking the same streets as you and I and the stars were brought down to earth.

Karen Knorr, FABLES: Towards a Digital Imaginary  Karen Knorr speaks about her recent work FABLES which continues her investigation into high art culture and its museum context using live and dead animals photographed in museums and heritage sites across France. FABLES, a survey show of Knorr's work will be exhibited at Centrale Electrique, European Centre for Contemporary Art until September 28 2008. Suggested Further Reading A Matter of Life and Death (1946) Film by Powell and Pressburger The Birds (1963) Alfred Hitchcock A Thousand Plateaux (1980) Deleuze and Guattari

Joy Gregory, Cinderella Tours Europe  Cinderella Tours Europe is a series of photographs which grew out of the numerous interviews Joy conducted during a four month research trip around the Caribbean. From Panama to Jamaica, from Haiti to Surinam, for many Europe was the place of unattainable dreams regarded in the same way as others may imagine Ancient Greece or the Roman Empire.

Steve Edwards, Russell Roberts, Gill Perry and Bettina Kaufmann, Q&A Session 1

Bettina Kaufmann, Curator’s Talk  Bettina Kaufmann gives an introduction to the Street & Studio exhibition at Tate Modern. She discusses the curatorial issues that arise from the juxtaposition of street and studio photography: at first glance they appear to be two divided image worlds, but interestingly there are inclusions and interplays of specific elements between the two genres. Street photography stands for spontaneity and immediacy, a place that is continuously changing, opposite to the originally quiet, formal and private studio photography.

Russell Roberts, Staged, Estranged, Candid and Observed: Mass-Observation & Photography  Russell Roberts looks at the ways that Mass-Observation engaged with photography during the 1930s and 40s, to understand social dynamics of the historical moment. The paper looks to specific applications of documentary realism in relation to urban space and more choreographed depictions of daily life from the street to the home to the place of work.