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Published on Monday, August 08, 2022
Abstract
After the publication of a pilot issue centred around the topic of Crisis, and a special issue, Beyond Binarities: Representations and Performances of Gender and Sexuality, the In Vivo Arts collective is launching a call for papers for the first issue of the platform, dedicated to Animals. Following the transdisciplinary approach espoused at the launch of the platform, we are seeking to harmonise the different disciplinary clusters: aesthetics(s), philo-performance(s), humanities, queerness, pluralities, and dialogue(s).
Announcement
Argument
After the publication of a pilot issue centred around the topic of CRISIS, and a special issue, Beyond Binarities: Representations and Performances of Gender and Sexuality, the IN VIVO ARTS collective is launching a call for papers for the first issue of the platform, dedicated to ANIMALS. Following the transdisciplinary approach espoused at the launch of the platform, we are seeking to harmonise the different disciplinary clusters: AESTHETICS(s), PHILO-PERFORMANCE(s), HUMANITIES, QUEERNESS, PLURALITIES, and DIALOGUE(s).
The latest film by the Norwegian Eskil Vogt, The Innocents, shows a cat being tortured by children, then thrown from the top of a staircase, to test its endurance. The scene showing the limping cat, with the dislocated paw, aggresses the viewer’s visual perception – culminating in a shot in which the head of the cat is crushed by the same children.
Reflecting a diametrically opposed aesthetic – both from the point of view of the medium of artistic expression and the scope of the sensorial experience – at the Bouffes du Nord Theatre in Paris, artists Camille Decourtye and Blaï Mateu Trias are producing the show Là (There). Combining dance and acrobatics, the show originally introduces a living magpie crow, Gus, as a character. Flying across the theatre hall, above the audience, Gus is part of the “reality” of the stage and, despite itself, elicits questions that go far beyond its animal nature. “Each scene where the animals intervene keeps a part of improvisation”, recalls Camille Decourtye, thus reinvesting the very notion of the “mimesis” and role of “reality” in the scenic representation.
Between those two aesthetic poles, and in the era of transhumanism, the Anthropocene, civilisational collapse and ecological excesses, the In Vivo collective wishes to bring together for its first issue reflections on the use of and recourse to animals in the Performing Arts and Cinema. Admittedly, animals have had a long history of appearing on stages and screens, and approaches such as “performing species” (Una Chaudhuri and Holly Hughes) have already operated this “animal turn” of which specialists speak in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Against this background, our main questions are: How do animals reinvest stages and screens when the latter become their new spaces of life (and death)? Do animals disclose (or provoke) a crisis of representation in the Performing Arts and Cinema? To what (new) kind of contemplation (and sensorial perception) do they appeal?
Reflections on animals go beyond aesthetic representation, as we can identify the articulation (or at least emergence) of an ethical discourse around the use of and recourse to animals in the Performing and Visual Arts. How to understand and, above all, how to theorise this ethics without undermining the (almost) complete freedom of the artistic gesture? What about the institutional, NGO and normative stances towards such artistic practices? How do the means of artistic production agree with the norms that define animal rights? Reflections could therefore raise questions of an ethical, anthropological, or historical nature; or a comparative one, while considering the differing gap of conceiving animal welfare across cultures, in a context marked by societal pluralities.
From Robert Bresson (Au hasard, Balthazar, 1966) to Jerzy Skolimowski (recently awarded the jury prize at Cannes for his EO), from Romeo Castellucci to Bartabas, or even from Steven Cohen to Rébecca Chaillon, our intention is to focus on animals as such, and much less on issues arising from animal symbolism (for example, the use of disguise by artists). As a result, we will be particularly sensitive to proposals aimed at exploring the concrete presence of animals (alive or stuffed) and materials derived thereof (meat, organs, blood, furs, etc.) on stages and screens. Approaches could be historical – from arenas to the circus arts, stage and film performances – or concerned with specific case studies.
Submission guidelines
Proposals for articles and / or interviews (300 - 400 words), along with a short biography, should be sent by email to invivoarts@gmail.com
no later than November 30, 2022 at midnight (Central European Time).
Selected submissions (to be communicated in December 2022) shall be published in the In Vivo Arts first issue – ANIMALS. As such, the final version of the contribution must be sent no later than April 15, 2023, at midnight (CET), with the release of the first issue being scheduled for June 2023.
Submissions are accepted in English and French.
The length is as follows:
- Research papers/case studies: 5,000-10,000 words
- Opinion essays: 3,000-5,000 words
- Reviews (books, performances, films): 1,500-2,500 words
- Interviews: 3,000-5,000 words
The In Vivo team accepts and encourages submissions by researchers starting from the MA level of study. The call for contributions is also open to the entire artistic community (artists curators, producers, etc.).
We kindly ask you to specify in your email the cluster to which you want to contribute.
Guest editor
Alexandru Bumbas – IRET (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) / INALCO
Scientific committee
- Mélissa Bertrand – LIRAA (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)
- Mathilde Baïssus – Université Saint-Denis
- Doina-Anca Cretu – Institut Masaryk, Prague
- Larissa Luica – CEREFREA/Université de Bucarest
- Nadin Mai – fondatrice The Arts of Slow Cinema (https://theartsofslowcinema.com/)
- Marie Marquelet – HCTI (Université de Bretagne Occidentale)
- Andreï-Simionescu Panait – Université Polytechnique de Bucarest
- Anca Pop – Université de Warwick
- Bérengère Rocher – Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
- Laura-Florina Stan – Université Hankuk des Études Étrangères, Seoul
Subjects
- Representation (Main category)
- Mind and language > Representation > Visual studies
Date(s)
- Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Keywords
- animal, art, spectacle vivant
Contact(s)
- Bumbas Alexandru
courriel : invivoarts [at] gmail [dot] com
Reference Urls
Information source
- Bumbas Alexandru
courriel : invivoarts [at] gmail [dot] com
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Animals », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, August 08, 2022, https://doi.org/10.58079/19d0
