[Commlist] CFP: Ecstatic Truth V: The Age of the Absurd

*/Ecstatic Truth V: The Age of the Absurd/**27-28^th April**2020***

*(in conjunction with Under**_**the**_**Radar, Vienna)*

*plus**29^th **^**April – Under**_**the**_**Radar symposium,**Vienna*

**

*Call for papers deadline:**16**^th **February 2020***

*//*

/Ecstatic Truth/is an annual symposium that explores issues arising from 
the interface between animation (in all its forms) and documentary 
(conceptualised very broadly as non-fiction), with a particular interest 
in the questions raised by experimental and practitioner perspectives. 
According to Werner Herzog, mere facts constitute an accountant’s 
reality, but it is the ecstatic truth (a poetic reality) that can 
capture more faithfully the nuances and depths of human experiences. 
Given that animation (or manipulated moving image in all of its expanded 
forms) has the freedom to represent, stylize or reimagine the world, it 
lends itself well to this aspirational form of documentary filmmaking.

For this, our 5^th symposium, held in collaboration with the 
Under_the_Radar Festival, Vienna, our theme is the Absurd. George 
Monbiot has described our contemporary age of increasing social and 
economic inequality, mass extinction and impending climate breakdown as 
deliberatedisaster capitalism in whichtheultra-rich benefit as 
institutions, systems of taxation and democratic processes implode. 
Everywhere the killer clowns and kleptocrats are taking over, he argues, 
with ludicrous strongmen dominating nations that would once have laughed 
them off stage. Absurdity is what they seek in order to take advantage. 
Chaos becomes the profit multiplier for the disaster capitalism on which 
they thrive. Every rupture is used to seize more of the assets on which 
our lives depend.^^[1] 
<applewebdata://39200E18-EB7F-4EFC-BDC6-4C22E4566734#_ftn1>

So how can we imaginatively and creatively respond to these killer 
clowns and the absurdity of a world being run to continuously make 
profit regardless of its sustainability? What is there to stand for if 
the world is perceived as meaningless and how to fight this complacency 
? Can we use animation for activism, to re-animate our conscience?How 
can we creatively challenge all this doom and gloom, and use our 
creative practice to navigate and challenge the absurd of our everyday 
lives? What is the role of humour, surrealism, the historic strategies 
of the Absurd and Central European Existentialism? Why does animation 
matter?

We invite speakers to respond to these ideas in order to reflect, 
speculate and imagine how the animated (or expanded manipulated image) 
form might elicit different facets of poetic truth through its unique 
language. We welcome proposals for 20-minute presentations, 
speculations, poetic reflections, rigorous questioning, even fierce 
creative opposition from both academic and practitioner-led 
perspectives. Selected papers will be published in a themed issue of the 
International Journal of Film and Media Arts.

The proposal should include an abstract of not more than 500 words and a 
short biography of no more than 200 words. Please send it 
to:(ecstatic.truth.symposium /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(ecstatic.truth.symposium /at/ gmail.com)>

Further details of theUnder_the_Radar Festival 2020 will be released in 
January.

Deadline: 16^th February 2020


*Ecstatic Truth is organised by*:Birgitta Hosea, Animation Research 
Centre, UCA Farnham, UK; Pedro Serrazina, Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon, 
Portugal; Tereza Stehlikova, CREAM, University of Westminster, UK

*With thanks to Under**_**the**_**Radar:*Barnaby Dicker, Martina 
Tritthart, Holger Lang

Online info:https://ecstatictruth5.eventbrite.co.uk 
<https://ecstatictruth5.eventbrite.co.uk/>

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