The WAVE conference is organized by the Endangered Writing Network and the VIEWS (Visual Interactions in Early Writing Systems) project at the University of Cambridge, UK.
From the organizers:
"Where the first WAVE conference was themed around the visual experiences of writing, this one focuses on visual engagement – subtly shifting the emphasis towards active participation in practices, processes, traditions and acts of writing.
Vision is a primary sensory mode of engagement with writing. And yet writing systems have been categorised almost exclusively by their linguistic features, while their visual features have rarely been studied systematically. This conference will bring together new perspectives on visual and visible aspects of writing, exploring the potential for different approaches and methods to work in harmony.
There are many possible avenues of interest. For instance, how can writing contribute to or change wider visual culture? How does the embodiment of writing as a practice contribute to its visual features? What is the importance of colour, light and dark in writing traditions? How do the choices made by writers affect the visual appearance of scripts and their signs? How does the visibility of writing interact with its social and cultural contexts? Can privileging emic perspectives help us to understand writing’s visual value to its user communities?"