Call for Panel Participation – CAA Washington, DC 2016
The New Media Caucus is programming three sessions for the ARTspace Media Lounge program titled VISIBLE/INVISIBLE at CAA 2016 in Washington, DC. The sessions are Ecologies of Creative Activism, Procedural Art: Game Platforms for Creative Expression, and Intersections: Cinema, Performance, Networked Media, and Politics. Please read the descriptions below for each session.
Submission information is listed at the end of each of the three calls.
Ecologies of Creative Activism
We seek artworks that engage the connections between the language we use to define identity and representation politics as they mirror the language of ecology, particularly the tendency to describe “landscapes” within socio-political spheres, the concept of microcosm/macrocosm in reference to activism and politics, as well as works exploring ecological issues from a scientific standpoint.
Ecologies of Creative Activism asks how do the theories of ecology apply towards activism? Is the internet an ecosphere for activists? Can Twitter and Facebook be seen as ecosystems for activism? The term “ecology” references both the study ofhow organisms relate within an environment and those relationships themselves, but it has also come to be synonymous with political activism on behalf of those systems. However, not all ecology is activism. The committee wishes to encourage exploration of works that leverage aesthetics of biospheres, ecospheres, and ecosystems from a scientific standpoint as well. We wish to find works that creatively engage with the systems ecology studies and works that practice creative methods of activism. These works may forge ties between art, activism, and ecologies as well as comparing and contrasting these models.
This session encourages alternative means of presentation. In seeking to present alternative modes of communication we discourage the straightforward presentations of papers in favor of small workshops, roundtables, performances, happenings, and other creative responses.
Works may respond to the topic in various ways including and not limited to the following:
- internet as ecosphere
- how activists function creatively within systems such as Twitter/Facebook/how those structures encourage a particular style of engagement
- how activists relate differently within particular environments such as the internet, city, remote locations, etc
- political activism as artistic practice
- Ecological activism
- works that use macrocosm/microcosm analogy/explorations
- works that examine biospheres, ecospheres, and ecosystems in scientific ways
- works that creatively engage with ecological systems
- works that practice creative methods of activism
- study of activism within specific online/offline environments and how those environments shape activism
- ways in which activists hack or transform systems to suit their needs
- relationships between activists across networks/environments/multiple platforms and how these environments shape activism
- which platforms/systems/environments (ecosystems) foster particular type of activist/activism: how/why?
- micro/macro systems in ecology/art/activism as they intersect and/or individually
DEADLINE: Email submissions by August 31, 2015 to demaray@camden.rutgers.edu. Submissions must include “Ecologies of Creative Activism Submission,” in the email subject line.
Procedural Art: Game Platforms for Creative Expression
The New Media Caucus invites artists, scholars, and theoreticians to submit proposals for a panel discussion titled Procedural Art: Game Platforms for Creative Expression. We welcome presentations focused on the design, aesthetics, and affordances of game platforms for new media art, as well as in critical approaches to this emerging genre. We are especially interested in sharing projects that demonstrate the creative use of game platforms in fine art contexts, and in highlighting the full range of possibilities this new medium offers.
Each participant will present a 10-15 presentation, and then participate in a discussion on the genre in relation to the larger art world.
Submission must include:
• 3-page CV, submitted as PDF
• 300 – 600 word abstract that describes the artistic or scholarly work.
• Documentation of art, if appropriate.
DEADLINE: Email submissions by August 31, 2015 to Victoria Szabo,
Intersections: Cinema, Performance, Networked Media, and Politics
Venue: College Art Association Conference, Media Lounge
Exhibit Date: February 6, 2016 @ CAA Conference in Washington, D.C.
Deadline to Enter: 8/31/15
Entry Fee: FREE
Eligibility: Open to all artists ages 18+.
The New Media Caucus is programming a session for the ARTspace Media Lounge entitled Intersections: Cinema, Performance, Networked Media, and Politics, under the theme of VISIBLE/INVISIBLE at CAA 2016 in Washington, DC.
Theme
This year’s theme, VISIBLE/INVISIBLE explores the legacy of identity and representation politics, considered in the context of our present culture where individuals, organizations and ideas can be easily captured, tracked, exposed, appropriated from the circulation of digital material which simultaneously feeds capitalist media assembly lines and alternative economies. Through Media Lounge programming we aim to foster a dialog centered on emerging artistic sensibilities that mix art and a politics of representation amid a transforming sociopolitical landscape.
Session
This two hour session will include 6-8 artists presenting work to help build a multi-threaded conversation that encourages interaction between the presenters and attendees. No written papers will be read. We expect the participants to briefly show/present the work and ideas related to the theme and to participate in the ensuing discussions.
Description
This panel will consider the impact that networked media, interactivity, and digital culture have had on cinema and performance. In particular, recent historical examples demonstrate that new uses of technology facilitate political communication, organization, resistance, protest, overthrow, etc. We seek new media artists, performers, filmmakers and documentarians to present work that engages, explores or responds to this context. Works may address but are not limited to any of the following:
- Groupthink and Mob Mentality as Public Performance
- Political Performance of Protests, Demonstrations, Riots, and Race as Amplified National Conversation
- Tactical Media Networking — Social Media to Create Toolkits to Distribute Methods and Means of Resistance, Crowdsourced and Collaborative Resistance
- Arab Spring, Use of Social Networks as Public Protest, Ethics of Twitter, Tactical Social Media
- Washington D.C. as “Site,” the 2016 Presidential Race, Instagram Accounts of Politicians
- Standards of Decency, Body Policing, Youtube as Theater, Persona and Celebrity
- Performance of Racial and Gender Identities in the Age of Avatars and Virtual Bodies, Politics of Virtual Environments
- Duration, Endurance and Persistence in Performance and Cinema
- Expanded or Exploded Cinemas that Incorporate Crowdsourced and Networked Footage
- The Bleeding of Cinema Into Theater, Performance Art, Sculpture, Installation
- Using Technology to Expose the Mechanics and Processes of Cinema, Cinema as Performance Collaborator
- Fictive Documentary as a Means for Constructing Truth
All media will be considered, but we are particularly interested in new media works that engage performative and cinematic conventions in new ways. Works must be able to be presented digitally or performed at CAA 2016 in Washington DC. Preference given to the following forms: new media, digital art, queer art, feminist art, activist based art, performance art and digital nonfiction.
Additionally, we are interested in receiving proposals for a durational performance piece to occur during this session and possibly to extend over the whole day. The anticipated schedule is to have workshops from 9-11am, 12-2pm, 3-5pm with hour breaks from 11-12pm and 2-3pm.
Please submit work sample(s) through our Google Form here: https://goo.gl/85QhmE by August 31, 2015. Questions may be sent to NMCopencall@gmail.com
