[Commlist] CFP – Histories of Microanalysis at the Intersection of Film, Science and Art

CFP

The Movement Movement: Histories of Microanalysis at the Intersection of 
Film, Science and Art
Philipps-University Marburg, Germany June 4–6, 2020

The desire to study the motion of humans and other animals is deeply 
embedded in the technological, social and aesthetic histories of film. 
For a long time, the focus was on individual behavior and individual 
actors. This changed in the 1950s and 1960s when anthropologists, 
psychologists, linguists, sociologists and ethologists increasingly 
turned to film to analyze movement as an element in systems of social 
interaction. Informed by cybernetics, systems theory and structural 
linguistics, researchers such as Ray L. Birdwhistell, Gregory Bateson, 
Nikolaas Tinbergen and Adam Kendon looked for patterns in what they 
regarded as the continuous, multi-sensorial stream of 
interaction/communication behavior. Film and later video became 
important tools to tap into this stream, to stabilize it and facilitate 
close attention to minute details through repeated viewings of brief 
stretches of interaction. Bringing to consciousness “visible, yet 
unseen” phenomena that sometimes lasted for only fractions of a second, 
film promised to open a window onto the microtemporalities and 
processuality of social systems. But such analysis also reflected back 
on the (micro-)temporalities of film itself. This point was not lost on 
experimental filmmakers like Hollis Frampton, who drew on studies of 
movement interaction in his theoretical and aesthetic reflections on 
film. The field of interaction studies also overlapped with developments 
in contemporary dance and performance art, drawing choreographers like 
Irmgard Bartenieff and Forrestine Paulay into the circles of 
communication research, while also influencing aesthetic approaches to 
dance and performance.
This conference aims at exploring these often overlooked intersections 
of social science, ethology, experimental film and the performing arts 
in the 1960s and 1970s across the disciplines of film and media studies, 
history of science, visual anthropology and art history. It addresses 
questions of science policy during the Cold War in the East and West, 
epistemologies of the moving image, scales of observation, and 
interrelations between analytical and aesthetic procedures. It also 
addresses the question of how film was integrated, in various ways, into 
wider media assemblages/environments, including notational systems, 
viewing equipment, diagrams, and artistic performances. Considering the 
entanglements of cinematic movement, movement interaction research and 
artistic practices, the conference seeks to open an historical 
perspective on recent debates on media change and the relocation of film.
The conference is part of the DFG research project “Transdisciplinary 
Networks of Media Knowledge” at Philipps-Universität Marburg.

Possible topics might include:
-  cinematic movement research and changing science policies in the 
1960s and 1970s
-  case studies/histories of filmic interaction research
-  visual anthropologies of movement and gesture
-  psychiatric and diagnostic uses of film and video
-  media assemblages of movement studies
-  microtemporalities in theories and philosophies of film
-  intersections between microanalysis and experimental film
-  the role of modern dance and dance notations for research on movement 
interaction
-  research film archives and archives of experimental film

Proposals should be submitted to (henning.engelke /at/ uni-marburg.de) by 
November 15, 2019. Please include a 250 - 500 word abstract and a 
current CV. Applicants will be notified of acceptance by November 30. 
The conference will take place at Philipps-University Marburg, Germany, 
on June 4–6, 2020.

Conference organizers:
Henning Engelke and Sophia Graefe, DFG-Heisenberg-Project 
“Transdisciplinary Networks of Media Knowledge”, Institute of Media 
Studies, Philipps-University Marburg
Link: 
https://www.uni-marburg.de/de/fb09/medienwissenschaft/pdfs/cfp_movement_movement_2020.pdf

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