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[ecrea] CFP: "Unruly Documentary Artivism"

Mon Sep 16 23:18:06 GMT 2013



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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