March 21/22, 2024, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
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The conference invites papers of artists and scholars alike, which reflect practices of artistic research through spatial, audio/visual projects and are set in the broader research context of contemporary forms of expanded cinema.
We believe that multichannel installations and other spatial audio/visual practices, including site-specific work, expanded animation and extended reality, provide a possible strategy to convey complex interpretations (of the «real») beyond the assertion of simple truths. The conference aims at broadly discussing such audio/visual alternatives along with the traditional written discourse. Specifically, the conference focus is a research paradigm for time-based and audio/visual media that values integration of practice and discourse.
Artistic research does not yet prominently include the medium film as a practice and a set of methods in artistic research. Filmmaking has developed epistemological practices of its own, which do not align seamlessly with current notions of artistic research. Among these figure documentary and animated documentary with their truth claim, experimental films with their often media-specific questions and installative practices of filmmakers and artists, which update those questions in a spatial context. Especially in the context of documentary theory the discussions about the epistemological value of audiovisual representations of the «real» have been vivid in the last decades. Precisely such discussions could be fruitfully introduced in the formation of practices linked to artistic research.
In the light of disruptive practices in audiovisual media, the conference promotes the study of historical practices of representation as a point of departure for the exploration of innovative time-based forms. We are specifically interested in multiperspective and spatial audio/visual formats: Which experimental or intuitive artistic processes offer possibilities for cognition through a spatial setting? To which extent can spatial configurations be epistemologically effective? How do the inner and outer medial space in audio/visual works correspond and generate meaningful experiences? Are artists working in uncharted areas (automatically) doing artistic research? How can such complex forms of audio/visual spaces be theorized or generalized? By artists? By traditional scholars? Does film theory have a stake in these discussions?
The closing conference Your Own Space of the Research Project Moving in Every Direction, funded by the Swiss National Science Fund is open to submissions from a broad field of contemporary audio/visual research. We are not looking for distinct project presentations but for papers and presentations that (auto-)reflect artistic research methods in audio/visual media and thus enable debating the state in the field. Historical positions are welcome but should reflect a contemporary implementation.
We are looking for
- Filmmakers and artists with an epistemological practice in the moving image
- Scholars with insight into practices of filmic research
- Evidence based projects in installation art or film in all forms and formats (including the public sphere)
- Essayistic and speculative contributions which single out and discuss specific practices of the audio/visual production of knowledge
Possible Formats of Participation
- Paper presentations (20 Minutes)
- Performances and performative Presentations (variable length)
- Film/Video projections (variable length)
- Installations and spatial interventions (limited technical and financial support possible)
- Workshops
Submission
Please Submit your proposal by October 31, 2023 to
email hidden; JavaScript is required, Tamara Zumbühl
Proposals should be no longer than 2000 Characters and must include precise information about the proposed format of the presentation.
Publication
A selection of the presentations will be included in a book publication. We aim for essayistic and speculative contributions in which the chosen format explores the associative character of one’s own (or a reviewed) artistic work through subjective associations. If you are interested in contributing to this publication, please be prepared to deliver the written version of your presentation by April 30, 2024. Written contributions to the publication should be between 15’000 and 35’000 characters but can also take on alternative paper-publishable formats.
SNSF Research Project Moving in Every Direction
The research project Moving in Every Direction (MiED) investigates contemporary practices of film and related media that present moving images as spatial configurations beyond the traditional cinema dispositif. By analogy with the Expanded Cinema of the 1960s, we explore the possibilities opened up by the ongoing digitisation of film, the miniaturisation of technology, the networking of screens, the proliferation of AR/VR/XR technologies, and viewers› habituation to ubiquitous, spatial forms of presentation in everyday life. The focus is on artistic practices of moving image and/or sound. The project investigates the aesthetic and narrative potentials as well as the production processes of time-based media and brings positions of experimental artistic research into the current debates on spatial forms of film.