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Revue « In Vivo Arts » No. 3

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Published on Monday, December 01, 2025

Abstract

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The In Vivo Arts team proposes an exploration of the concept of virtualities, and therefore invite artists, researchers, playwrights, performers, theorists, technicians, educators, and thinkers in the performing arts and cinema to submit reflections, texts, experiments, critiques, archives, works, or testimonies that interrogate this concept beyond its broad association with the world of digital technology, Artificial Intelligence, or new technologies.

Announcement

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Argument

In her recent performance, 20 Days of the Muse of Sodom, Angélica Liddell – winner of the Spanish National Theatre Prize in 2025 – "staged" the circumstances of the potential various deaths she would experience at the end of her life. Fans of the legendary group ABBA can now "meet" their favourite artists in the virtual show ABBA VOYAGE, where digital avatars of the musical group members appear before the public as in 1979. Elsewhere, the Colombian Group Mapa Teatro recreates the symbolic universe of the indigenous Amazonian Nukak people, through an immersive sound installation.

Across genres, formats and topics, cinema has also been incorporating virtual reality tools at an accelerated pace in the last couple of decades. Following the pandemic, the streaming platform MUBI launched a "film?!" titled Grand Theft Hamlet, directed by Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane. In this creation, set entirely within the open world of the video game Grand Theft Auto, players' avatars strive to create a staging of Shakespeare's Hamlet. From the fantastical 3D world(s) of James Cameron’s Avatar series to the immersive partaking in the perilous journey of Central American migrants in Alejandro Iñárritu’s Flesh & Sand’ (2017), and further to Joe Hunting’s entirely within-VR-shot documentary on friendship and love in the virtual world, We Met in Virtual Reality (2022), VR technologies have encouraged filmmakers and theorists to engage anew with the as-old-as-cinema discussion on the nature – and future – of the seventh art.

All these artistic creations (and so many more yet to be discovered) have led the IN VIVO ARTS team to propose an exploration of the concept of VIRTUALITIES. We therefore invite artists, researchers, playwrights, performers, theorists, technicians, educators, and thinkers in the performing arts and cinema to submit reflections, texts, experiments, critiques, archives, works, or testimonies that interrogate this concept beyond its broad association with the world of digital technology, AI, or new technologies.

The concept of "virtuality" (or the "virtual") – derived from the Latin virtus meaning "force," "power," or "virtue" – evokes a field of thought and exploration that extends beyond the transformation of the performing arts during the digital age. It also describes something that exists potentially rather than actually, or that is possible, probable, or likely to exist. In this context, with the launch of our last issue – UNKNOWN(S) – the concept of "virtuality" sparked the creation of a new IN VIVO ARTS cluster, which informs this present proposal and the cross-disciplinary nature of which is central to our concerns.

Numerous contemporary studies – ranging from Gabriella Giannachi and her “virtual theatres” (Routledge, 2004) to Oliver Grau and his “virtual art” (MIT Press, 2003), or from Dixon Steve and “digital performance” (MIT Press, 2007) to Mark Hansen and the “codified bodies” (Routledge, 2006) – circumscribe “virtuality” within the technological potential of the artistic act. Similarly, new tools such as 360-degree perspective, computer-generated imagery, motion caption equipment have understandably galvanised the attention of researchers and critics around the challenges and potentials of virtual reality as a cinematic technology or medium. As a result, problems related to Jamie McRoberts’ “user positionality”, “immersion” and “presence” (Routledge, 2018), Rudy Carpio and James Birt’s theory of the “human-machine interaction” (Routledge, 2025), or Kath Dooley’s “narrative structures” (Palgrave, 2024) are occasioning timely and rich explorations.

However, without rejecting the proximity between the virtual and the technological, we would like to also encourage a more metaphysical or ontological understanding of virtuality, inspired by concepts such as Deleuze’s “virtual image”, Derrida’s “hauntology”, or Baudrillard’s “hyper-reality”, or by revisiting canonical concepts such as the Platonic “eidolon” ​​or the Aristotelian “mimesis”, or even mystical and experiential theories, such as Hildegard of Bingen’s “viriditas” (“the greening power”) or prophetic visions and their artistic transcriptions and representations. We thus invite contributors to approach VIRTUALITIES as fields of force where images, affects, presences, powers of apparition, and modes of existence intersect—realities that cannot be reduced to the merely technical. 

Consequently, the cross-thematic span of VIRTUALITIES emerges as the primary focus of this issue, which aims to reaffirm the IN VIVO ARTS thematic clusters. Possible contributions may therefore address, but are not limited to:

  • Aesthetics: dances and choreographies organized around the virtual and the extreme possibilities of the body; spectral dramaturgy and scenography, experiential and sensory screens; sacred texts and performing arts and cinema; representations of imaginary, mythical, and supernatural worlds.
  • Philo-performance: reality and simulation; truth and false; new forms of perception; the role of imagination; the role of the individual and forms of trans-individuality; the relationship between digital technologies, art and science; human agency and human powers of world-building and world-destruction, as expressed through virtual performance arts and cinematic virtual reality.
  • Humanities: historical reenactment and reconstruction; memorial architectures and the creative potential of archives; works of political activism with potential for social impact; political utopias and dystopias.
  • Queerness: gendered representations and new bodily and identity potentialities; transformation of artistic language considering inclusive and/or epicene writing; transformative and transhumanist bodies.
  • Pluralities: globalisation as a possible alternative to localised art; "global realism" (Milo Rau); potential meanings of multiculturalism in artmaking.

Submission guidelines

Proposals for articles, essays, interviews, and presentations of works and/or artists (300–400 words), in English, French, or Spanish, accompanied by a short biography, must be sent by email to invivoarts@gmail.com no later than 15th February 2026, at midnight (CET). Particular attention will be given to proposals of artistic works (textual or audiovisual) that can be published without revisions on our platform.

Selected contributions (to be announced by the end of February 2026) will be published in the 3rd issue – VIRTUALITIES. The final version of the contribution must be submitted no later than 15th June 2026, at midnight (CET), with the issue scheduled for release in September 2026.

The length and format of the contributions should be as follows:

  • Articles/case studies: between 5,000 and 10,000 words
  • Essays: between 3,000 and 5,000 words
  • Reviews (books, performances, films, etc.): between 1,500 and 2,000 words
  • Interviews: between 3,000 and 5,000 words
  • Presentations and proposals of works (textual and/or audiovisual): to be discussed with the IN VIVO ARTS contact person once the proposal has been selected.

Evaluation

The submissions received will be subject to a selection process conducted by the platform’s editor-in-chief team:

  • Alexandru Bumbas, Pontifical Javeriana University (Colombia) / School of Dramatic Art of the National Theater of Bogotá (Colombia) / INALCO
  • Anca Pop, Royal Holloway – University of London (United Kingdom)

Editorial Committee of the issue

Issue Coordination:

  • Alexandru Bumbas, Pontifical Javeriana University (Colombia) / School of Dramatic Art of the National Theater of Bogotá (Colombia) / INALCO
  • Anca Pop, Royal Holloway – University of London (United Kingdom)

Editing:

  • Juan José Apolinar Romero, University of Salamanca (Spain) / University of Los Andes (Colombia)
  • Mathilde Baïssus, Sorbonne Nouvelle University – Paris 3 (France)
  • Larissa Luica, CEREFREA (Regional Francophone Center for Advanced Research in Social Sciences) – University of Bucharest (Romania)
  • Laura Stan, Hanyang University (South Korea)

Suggested bibliography

Baudrillard Jacques, Simulacres et Simulations, Paris, Galilée, 1981.

Causey, Matthew, Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture: From Simulation to Embeddedness, Routledge, 2006.

Birt, James, Carpio, Rudy, “The role of the Embodiment Director in virtual reality film production” in Creative Industries Journal, Vol 15, London, Routledge-Taylor & Francis, 2022. 

Deleuze, Gilles, Différence et répétition, Paris, PUF, 1968.

Derrida, Jacques, Spectres de Marx, Paris, Seuil, 1993.

Dixon, Steve, Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation, MIT Press, 2007.

Dooley, Kath, Munt, Alex (ed.), Screenwriting for Virtual Reality. Story, Space and Experience, London, Palgrave McMillan, 2024. 

Giannachi, Gabriella, Virtual Theatres: An Introduction, Routledge, 2004.

Grau, Oliver, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, MIT Press, 2003.

Hansen, Mark B. N., Bodies in Code: Interfaces with Digital Media, Routledge, 2006.

Kaye Nick, Giannachi Gabriela, Shanks Michael, Archaeologies of Presence, Routledge, 2012.

Lévy, Pierre, Qu’est-ce que le virtuel ?, Paris, La Découverte, 1995.

Massumi, Brian, Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, Duke University Press, 2002.

McRoberts, Jamie, “Are we there yet? Media content and sense of presence in non-fiction virtual reality” in Studies in Documentary Film, Vol 12, London, Routledge-Taylor & Francis, 2018.

Murray, Janet, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, MIT Press, 1997.

Phelan, Peggy, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance, Routledge, 1993.

Places

  • 3 rue delescluze
    Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France (94)

Event attendance modalities

Full online event


Date(s)

  • Sunday, February 15, 2026

Keywords

  • virtualité, art du spectacle vivant, théâtre, cinéma

Contact(s)

  • Alexandru Bumbas
    courriel : invivoarts [at] gmail [dot] com
  • Anca Pop
    courriel : Anca [dot] Pop [dot] 2022 [at] live [dot] rhul [dot] ac [dot] uk

Reference Urls

Information source

  • Alexandru Bumbas
    courriel : invivoarts [at] gmail [dot] com

License

CC-BY-4.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0 .

To cite this announcement

Alexandru Bumbas, Anca Pop, « Virtualities », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, December 01, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/1590e

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