[ecrea] CFP: Art is Dead Long Live Live Art - An Interdisciplinary Conference on Performance

*Art is Dead, Long Live Live Art: *

*An Interdisciplinary Conference on Performance *

*20-21 April 2018 / London, UK*


In 2012 Tate Modern opened The Tanks, the first museum space to be 
devoted to live art and performance. In 2017, at the latest edition of 
the Venice Biennale entitled /Vive Le Art/ (Long Live Art), the German 
Pavilion that was dedicated to performance art, received the Golden Lion 
for the Best Pavilion Award.


The acknowledgment of performance art by the most prestigious art 
institutions around the world, is no doubt, a testament to its growing 
place among contemporary art practices. Nevertheless, what Dominic 
Johnson claims, in his 2014 book /Critical Live Art/, is still apt: 
“there is a relative absence of scholarly work on Live Art as a 
historically and culturally specific mode of artistic production”.


“Art is Dead, Long Live, Live Art”, is an international and 
interdisciplinary conference that will try to remedy this relative absence.


Taking the following definition by the Live Art Development Agency 
(LADA) as its starting point, the conference will be open to papers that 
deal with any aspect of performance art:


To talk about Live Art is to talk about art that invests in ideas of 
process, presence and experience as much as the production of objects or 
things; art that wants to test the limits of the possible and the 
permissible; and art that seeks to be alert and responsive to its 
contexts, sites and audiences.


We invite papers that engage with (but are not limited to) the following 
questions, which could be addressed from a theoretical perspective or 
through specific case studies:


  * What is the relation, if any, between different genres of live art?
    Is there a relation between, for example, an experimental staging of
    Shakespeare and a durational performance in a public space? Is there
    any affinity between, say, an immersive theatre and a participatory
    body art performance? What is the difference between a drag show and
    a performance art where the artist is in drag?
  * How does gender politics work in live art? Does concepts like drag,
    nudity, endurance, body modification change meaning when applied to
    the gendered body of the performer? Is drag supposed to be
    considered burlesque when the performer is a cis woman? Is the
    cyborg body of post- humanist performances gendered? If gender is
    performative, then how is gender fluidity performed in live art?
  * Is the documentation of performance art, an art onto itself? Who is
    the artist in a photograph or video of a performance, the performer
    or the documenter? Why is someone like Spencer Tunik considered a
    photographer and not a performance artist? Does documenting “live
    art” kill it?
  * What is the place of reenactment in performance art? Is the
    reenactment of performance scores akin to “covers” in music or are
    they like the “play” in theatre and the “script” in cinema or should
    each reenactment be considered an adaptation?
  * How does the high/low art divide bear upon live art? How does one
    separate circus and street arts from endurance performances; what is
    the difference between nudity in a gallery setting and in burlesque
    shows; what is the difference between stand-up comedy and spoken
    word performance?
  * What is the methodology of an in-depth analysis of a single
    performance? How should a performance artist’s /oeuvre/ be
    evaluated? Does the concept of an /auteur/ have any meaning in the
    realm of live art? What is the difference between a performance
    artist that is her own performer and one that “employs” performers?
  * When activities that are already regarded as “performative” or
    “theatrical”, like BDSM sexuality, occult practices, traditional
    rituals become a part of live art, how does this double
    performativity work?
  * How is the reception of live art to be conceptualized? Does
    performance art provocatively attack the safety of the spectatorial
    position? Does participation really put an end to the myth of the
    passive spectator or does it turn the spectator into an unwilling,
    thus passive, participant?
  * How is performance art represented in non-live arts like cinema and
    literature? How is live art represented in popular media? Why does
    performance art become a subject of ridicule, even hate, in social
    media?
  * What is the relationship between activism and performance? Can
    performance art be considered a form of activism? How should we
    conceptualize the fact that many political demonstrations contain
    what in other contexts would have been considered live art?
  * What is the relationship between technology and performance art? Is
    multimedia performance, a separate genre of live art? How does the
    concept of live audience and interactivity change when the
    performance is live on the web rather than sharing the same space
    with the audience?


For further questions please contact Dr. Tuna Erdem: 
(tuna /at/ queerartprojects.co.uk) <mailto:(tuna /at/ queerartprojects.co.uk)>


  * *Conference Fee: 150 GBP, including lunch and coffee breaks.*
  * *Conference Dates: 20-21 April 2018*
  * *Deadline for submissions: 19 January 2018*
  * *Announcement of selected papers: 9 February 2018*
  * *Registration deadline: 23 March 2018*


To submit your abstracts please go to the conference web site:


https://www.queerartprojects.co.uk/conferences/art-dead-long-live-live-art-interdisciplinary-conference-performance/

​
---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please
use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------