Archive for 2017
*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 ---------------