[ecrea] CFP The New Old: Archaism and Anachronism across Media

*/Alphaville Journal of Film and Screen Media/*

*The New Old: Archaism and Anachronism Across Media*

Guest Editors: Stefano Baschiera (Queen’s University Belfast) and Elena
Caoduro (University of Bedfordshire)

*Deadline: Friday 19th February 2016*

This special issue of /Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media
/aims to investigate the role that deliberate anachronism and archaism
play in relation to film, television and the digital media and how these
sensibilities manifest in the contemporary mediascape. Over the past
decade, the digitalisation of culture has revolutionised the way we
experience and consume arts and mass media, deeply affecting how they
are perceived in their digital materiality. In fact, the tangibility of
cultural objects is somewhat lessened, so that they can relocate
elsewhere in a constant process of remediation. At the same time, this
digital disruption has contributed to the emergence of a postmodern
“nostalgia for the analogue” with the rapid increase of vintage and
retro phenomena in arts and society. This new sensibility towards the
past manifests itself in two ways. On the one hand, it appears in the
persistence of vintage objects as cultural artefacts from specific
periods which find new (albeit often anachronistic) uses in contemporary
life. While vinyls, old-medium-format cameras, polaroids, audiocassettes
and typewriters populate our living rooms as design objects, artists and
filmmakers rediscover 16mm films and U-Matic tapes. On the other hand,
new cultural products look at the past mimicking old styles, stories,
and textures. Video games rediscover the simplicity of 2D and 8-bit
technology, computer and smartphone applications feature skeuomorphic
design, photo filters applications are able to digitally age pictures,
and everyday objects, from clothing to appliances, constantly look at
past styles.

Popular culture critic Simon Raynolds has correctly identified the
renaissance of past decades at the turn of the new millennium. He argues
that “instead of being the threshold to the future, the first ten years
of the twenty-first century turned out to be the ‘Re’ Decade. The 2000s
were dominated by the ‘re-‘ prefix: /re/vivals, /re/issues,
/re/makes,/ re/-enactments. Endless /re/trospection” (2001: xi). This
special issue of /Alphaville /sheds light on the complexities of the
consumption and representation of new-old styles in film and screen
media, and questions whether this phenomenon is simply restorative and
nostalgic or progressive and future-oriented.

Accordingly, the Guest Editors invite contributors to investigate topics
and issues such as:

●technological anachronism in screen media;

●deliberate archaism;

●postmodern nostalgia and material culture;

●faux-vintage as aesthetic category;

●sustainability, recycling and vintage objects;

●“retro” and authenticity in visual media;

●media archaeology;

●ruinophilia;

●the revival of old sub-genres in Film & TV;

●films and video games as vintage objects;

●representation of “vintage” decades;

●retro “across borders” and transnational retro-aesthetic;

●vintage cinema and fashion industry;

●heritage vs. vintage cinema;

●“museum aesthetics” in Film & TV;

●props, costumes and set design;

●vintage/retro style and gender.

Potential contributors are invited to submit a 300-word abstract with a
short bibliography by Friday, 19th of February 2016 to the following
addresses: (s.baschiera /at/ qub.ac.uk) <mailto:(s.baschiera /at/ qub.ac.uk)> and
(elena.caoduro /at/ beds.ac.uk) <mailto:(elena.caoduro /at/ beds.ac.uk)>. Completed
articles of approximately 6,000 words in length (minimum 5,500 words)
that fully adhere to the journal style must be submitted by 1^st  of May
2016. Video essays with a supporting text can also be considered. Please
contact the Guest Editors, Stefano Baschiera and Elena Caoduro, for any
queries at the above addresses.

*www.alphavillejournal.com <http://www.alphavillejournal.com>*


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