[ecrea] CFP – FilmForum International Film Studies Conference

/_FilmForum 2018_/

//

/XXV Udine-Gorizia International Film Studies Conference: //A History of 
Cinema Without Names///

Gorizia (Italy), March 1^st -3^rd 2018

//

*/Exposing the Moving Image: the Cinematic Medium across World Fairs, 
Art Museums, and Cultural Exhibitions/*

Drawing on the outcomes of the project “A History of Cinema Without 
Names”, for the XXV Edition of our International Film Studies 
Conference, we decided to apply those epistemological and methodological 
tools stemming from our three-year-project to a specific object. In 
other words, this proposal has to be considered as the “first step” of 
the second part of “A History of Cinema Without Names”, which will be 
steered by a more applicative effort. This new project will be named 
/Exposing the Moving Image: the Cinematic Medium across World Fairs, Art 
Museums, and Cultural Exhibitions/.

It aims to shed light on the meaningful interrelations between moving 
images, media and arts throughout modernity and postmodernity – which 
means during the “pre-cinema, cinema and post-cinema” eras, with a 
specific focus on Universal Expositions.

In fact, universal expositions proved to be crucial for the 
investigations on the emergence of the cinematic medium and on its 
fluctuant re-configurations within the broad “media landscape” of the 
modern era. Historically, World Fairs are not only places of 
self-reflexion, self-representation and self-promotion, but also moments 
of “identity construction” for a social community. They configure 
themselves as arenas of interdisciplinary exchanges and of cultural 
eclecticism (Jeffrey T. Schnapp 2012). Not by chance, French historian 
Pascal Ory discussed eight multi-layered, recurrent and basic functions 
for these events, which correspond to eight across-the-board “functions 
of modernity” (Ory 2010): technological, commercial, architectural, 
urbanistic, artistic, propagandistic, diplomatic, and the 
popular/playful one.

Thus investigating the role of the moving image in this context means to

–problematize the “exhibition frameworks and forms” as strategies for 
the legitimization and institutionalization of the moving image culture 
(Hagener 2007);

–to put the cinematic medium and the moving image in relation to other 
cultural and industrial functions: for instance, given the significant 
role international “Expos” have been playing in representing “other” 
cultures and displaying ethnographic findings, world fairs and universal 
exhibitions could represent a major concern for retracing connections 
between the moving image and the anthropological discourse (especially 
as regards non-western visual cultures);

–to show how cinema has taken part (until nowadays) in the economic 
cycle, configuring itself as a useful tool for commerce within the large 
“expo and world’s fair context”.

Consequently, the /Exposing the Moving Image: the Cinematic Medium 
across World Fairs, Art Museums, and Cultural Exhibitions/**project 
discloses three major research paths for media and cultural scholars:

1)by granting a deep time perspective (Zielinski 2006), to stress the 
redundancies, recurrences and variations of moving image apparatuses and 
devices from the very beginning of the “Universal Exposition experience” 
until nowadays. In this sense, our general frameworks will be the 
archaeology of the mobile vision and the archaeology of screens, 
displays and technological novelties (Huhtamo 2013);

2)to highlight how audiovisual texts (film, analog videos, digital 
videos, and so on) and, more broadly, the moving image work within these 
exhibition contexts in an inter-medial and inter-textual way – more 
specifically “across” and/or “outside” the “movie theatre context”;

3)by maintaining a global scope, to stress the advantages of an 
intertwined approach to wide media-phenomena in the wake of the so 
called “entangled history”, which “implies a shift of attention towards 
the interconnectedness of the world we live in”: entangled history opens 
the focus on interaction, interdependence and complexity” and aims to 
overcome a mere comparative approach (Hagener 2015).

This kind of epistemological framework, which stems from an historical 
investigation of World Fairs and International Exhibitions, can be 
applied to other modalities of “exhibiting and exposing” cinema. In 
other words, the shift towards the notion of /entangled history /through 
a “deep time” investigation (Zielinski) and a “screenological” approach 
(Huhtamo) could be a proper tool that highlights how musealisation 
processes affected – and still affect – past and contemporary 
cinematographic practices, shaping exhibition modalities that are 
“always already new”.

Thus, although our CFP is more focused on the use of the cinematic 
medium within the World Fairs and International Exhibitions context, we 
will also welcome proposals regarding the use of moving images in other 
exhibition contexts: the first and more obvious references are, of 
course, the transition from cinema to museum,film installations, the 
exposed cinema, the “expanded” or “extended” cinema, and so on.

In other words, we aim to map the possible interrelationships between 
the notion of moving image and the notion of “exhibition” in the 
broadest possible sense. Not by chance, then, we will welcome proposals 
regarding also small-gauge film and amateur technology exhibitions, art 
exhibition contexts, professional technical objects exhibitions, 
visualization modalities for “film exhibitions”, digital media 
exhibitions, exhibition practices in non-art museums, and so on.

In this sense, we will try to answer the following questions: how have 
films and film technologies been exposed not only in “aesthetically 
relevant contexts”, but also in “culturally relevant contexts”? Did 
these cultural expositions develop “working objects” (Daston, Galison 
2007) that affected specific cultural and scientific fields throughout 
modernity and post-modernity? Which are the consequences of certain 
“dislocative” and “paracinematic” practices (Levi 2012) stemming from 
cultural exhibitions of cinematic artefacts and technologies? Which 
means: how do film and film technology expositions work in didactic 
contexts (such as experimental media-archaeology laboratories, for 
instance) or in cultural exhibitions (such as in film culture and film 
heritage institutions exhibitions apparatuses, industrial archaeology 
exhibitions, technology exhibitions, and so on)?

**

*We invite you to send us proposals for papers or panels. **Proposals 
should not exceed one page in length. Please make sure to attach a short 
CV (10 lines max). **The deadline for their submission is October, 25^th 
2017.*

*A registration fee (160 euros) will be applied. Moreover travel costs 
(tickets, etc.) will not be refunded.*

*On the other hand, we will partially cover the costs of your 
accommodation (2 nights in the best accommodation solutions available). 
S**pecial rates are available for additional nights.*

**

**

*For more information, please contact us at 
**/(cinemawithoutnames /at/ gmail.com)/* <mailto:(cinemawithoutnames /at/ gmail.com)>/./



---------------
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
---------------