[ecrea] CFP: "Unruly Documentary Artivism"

CALL FOR PAPERS:

Studies in Documentary Film. Issue 3, 2014.

Special Theme Issue: “Unruly Documentary Artivism”

Guest Editors: Semin Kara, Assistant Professor OCAD University and 
Camilla Møhring Reestorff, Assistant Professor Aarhus University

In recent years we have seen a significant rise in the number of 
documentary films that explore the performative role of the filmmaker 
and filmed subjects. In many of these films the artistic, aesthetic and 
performative practices are intertwined with political and 
media-conscious activism, leading to the development of hybrid fields of 
activity such as “artivism.” Yet many of these films are not only 
artivist and highly political in their motivations, but they are also 
unruly; the filmmakers radically challenge the expectation that the 
“artivist” comply with certain codes for “ethical behavior.” Unruly 
documentary artivism manifests itself in different forms. Filmmakers, 
such as Michael Moore and Bill Mahler, directly confront and critique 
their subjects -- at times without their consent --, while others, such 
as Mads Brügger, Sascha Baron Cohen, and The Yes Men, purposefully 
create fraudulent identities or hoaxes to challenge the discourses of 
governments, corporations, and certain interest groups. Other filmmakers 
choose to misbehave or act unruly with regard to the topics of their 
films. Directors such as Rithy Panh and Joshua Oppenheimer challenge the 
viewer by lending the camera’s voice to people we might otherwise 
preclude from representation. And finally some filmmakers, such as Laura 
Poitras, Ai Weiwei, Banksy, and Jafar Panahi become unruly due to their 
persistent clashes with state authorities.



It is easy to simply dismiss unruly documentary artivism – engaging in 
practices like bullying, culture jamming, hacktivism, and hooliganism – 
as unethical, disruptive, or narcissistic, and accuse it of merely 
reproducing inequality rather than producing alternative or utopian 
spaces and archives. Yet in this issue we challenge contributors to 
investigate the peculiar strategies of the unruly documentary artivists, 
instead of rejecting them on ethical or representational grounds. More 
specifically, we seek papers that pose the following questions: What is 
the potential of the unruly artivist documentarian or the agent 
provocateur that does not play by the rules? What kind of mediatized 
strategies do the unruly documentary artivists have at their disposal? 
How do polemical practices contribute to a new landscape of the visible 
and the sensible?

You can submit papers (5.000-7.000 words) to Camilla Reestorff 
((norcmr /at/ hum.au.dk)) and Selmin Kara ((skara /at/ faculty.ocadu.ca)) no later 
than January 31, 2014.

Please submit the papers as Word documents, include a separate cover 
page with title, name, contact information, 150 word abstract and five 
keywords and confer to Intellect’s style guide before submitting 
(http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/page/index,name=journalstyleguide/). 


Authors are also invited to submit reviews (1.000-2.500 words) of books, 
documentary film conferences or documentary film festivals related to 
the issue theme.


Best regards,

Selmin Kara



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