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[Commlist] CFP - L'Atalante #35 - Immersive Cinema. Devices, Stories, and Virtual Worlds
Sun Oct 31 18:25:33 GMT 2021
L'Atalante is pleased to announce the call for papers of issue 35 of
*L’Atalante. Revista de Estudios Cinematográficos* which, under the
title of “*Immersive Cinema: Devices, Stories, and Virtual Worlds*”, is
open to contributions.
Executive Issue Editors: Àngel Quintana and Daniel Pérez (Universitat de
Girona).
The period open to full article contributions between 5,000 and 7,000
words goes fromApril 1st to April 24th 2022. The issue will be published
in January 2023. There are no article processing costs charged to authors.
You can find detailed information at:
http://www.revistaatalante.com/index.php?journal=atalante&page=announcement&op=view&path%5B%5D=86
<http://www.revistaatalante.com/index.php?journal=atalante&page=announcement&op=view&path%5B%5D=86>
www.revistaatalante.com <http://www.revistaatalante.com/>
(info /at/ revistaatalante.com) <mailto:(info /at/ revistaatalante.com)>
IMMERSIVE CINEMA. DEVICES, STORIES AND VIRTUAL WORLDS
Thanks to the new digital technologies, much contemporary representation
is based on virtual reality (Rodowick, 2007). Computer, television, and
film images are the product of mathematical expressions that transform
all signs into something equivalent to the medium they came from. As
Pierre Lévy suggests, we are witnessing a “general movement of
virtualization [that] has begun to affect not only the fields of
information and communication but also our physical presence and
economic activities, as well as the collective framework of sensibility
and the exercise of intelligence. The process of virtualization has even
affected our modalities of being together, the constitution of a
collective ‘we’ in the form of virtual communities, virtual
corporations, virtual democracy…” (Lévy, 1998: 15).
In spite of this process, photographic realism continues to be the Holy
Grail of the digital image. But this kind of realism, which is
celebrated in many of the discourses on the new media, has nothing to do
with the need to capture and document events; rather, it is associated
with the possibility of building new worlds with the same guarantees
once offered by the analogue image. In other words, the digital image,
drawing on mathematical algorithms, explores the possibility of creating
a multi-layered three-dimensional space that is heavily marked by
simulation. This is why, in the process of capturing images, the
contemporary world gives way to the virtual world. Nevertheless, in view
of the debate over the persistence of cultural series (Gaudreault,
2008), where the concepts of continuity and singularity are disputed, it
is worth questioning whether this photographic realism of the digital
age is really new. We should be able to identify its essence in the
mythical story of Zeuxis and Parrhasius (Gubern, 2005), or in ideas like
that of a “total cinema” capable of creating other worlds, described by
René Barjavel in the 1940s.
The digitalisation of cinema, in the context of a broader process of
virtualisation, has positioned the medium in a new realm of creation of
virtual worlds that needs to be defined, studied, and analysed. However,
to be able to tease out its implications, it is also necessary to
revisit that moment when photography and analytical computation first
began to explore new directions (Manovich, 2001). The first 3D films and
the subsequent development of stereoscopic images explored new
three-dimensional forms of depth of field in a manner similar to Hale’s
Tours of the World, the Mareorama, and even the panoramas of the
late-18^th century, to offer /immersive/ aesthetic experiences not so
different from the cinematic experience. While the first screening of a
3D film took place on 10 June 1915 at the Astor Theatre in New York City
(Barnier and Kitsopanidou, 2015), featuring footage shot by Edwin S.
Porter, today the 4DX format offers a viewing experience on a huge IMAX
screen, with Dolby Atmos surround sound enhanced by seat movements and
other sensory effects (rain, fog, wind) that bring the spectator closer
to the action. To map a genealogy of the cinematic experience, to
situate it in its historical context and place it in relation to other
cultural phenomena of its time, is just as important as investigating
how film narratives are conditioned by these different approaches to the
relationship between spectator and film.
Immersion in the virtual worlds of cinema raises a theoretical problem
that involves the concepts of virtual reality, augmented realities, and
(especially) /photorealism/. All these variations on the notion of
reality point to the idea that cybernetic realism has never contradicted
the principle of classical cinema that associates the film image with
figurative realism. In all cases, what these variations offer is not a
realism of the represented, but a realism of the representation
(Quintana, 2011). The objective of this kind of realism is to conquer an
imaginary: its intention is not to imitate the coordinates of the real
world, but to bring dreams to life, to create a limited, realistic and
internally consistent world.
The aim of this monograph is to explore different facets of the
immersive capacity that cinema has possessed and continues to possess,
through studies examining the relationship between aesthetics and film
narrative and the devices that make that relationship possible. In this
sense, rather than exploring immersion and virtual experience in cinema
from a merely technological point of view, the intention of this issue
is to investigate how they influence cinematic enunciation and spectator
reception.
Areas that submissions could consider include:
1. *Media archaeology:* the analysis and study of technologies that
developed prior to and during the age of cinema, which can serve to
contextualise film history within a much broader process, focusing
on the evolution of visual devices, such as screens, projectors, and
audio systems.
2. *Immersive experiences in early cinema: *research analysing films
from the early years of cinema in order to identify traces of new
sensory forms in such works.**
3. *Theoretical reflections on immersive technologies:* hermeneutic
approaches to the concept of “immersion” related to the audiovisual
devices and spectacles of the early years.**
4. *Immersive spectacles and virtualisation:* exploring different types
of immersive experiences in connection with the film spectacle, also
from a historiographic perspective.**
5. *The role of the actor and virtual worlds: *the development of the
actor’s work in the context of new virtualisation processes.**
6. *Mise-en-scène and** immersive environments: *studying the
development and associated use of /immersive/ spaces, such as those
offered by 4DX technology, also in relation to other attempts to
create immersive experiences in the past, such as Hale’s Tours of
the World, the Mareorama, or the panoramas of the late 18^th
century.**
7. *Relationships between the virtual worlds of early cinema and
contemporary cinema: *a revision of the past from the perspective of
a dual logic based, on the one hand, on an analysis of the reuse of
pre-existing technologies, and on the other, on an aesthetic
reflection on the modes of virtuality of the present in connection
with the aesthetic achievements of the past.
8. *Relationships between virtual worlds and film narrative*:
reflections on case studies that consider how technological
developments condition film narrative, i.e., that posit a discursive
relationship between the mode of presenting a particular story in
images and the devices that make it possible.**
9. *Relationships between virtual worlds and film aesthetics:
*approaches to the creation of visual imaginaries that emerge or
have emerged in relation to the virtual worlds of different eras,
either within the film world itself or imported from other worlds,
such as the binary language of the digital world or of video games.**
*References***
Barnier, M. & Kitsopanidou, K. (2015). /Le cinema 3-D. Histoire,
économie, technique, esthétique. /Paris: Armand Collin.
Gaudreault, A. (2008). /Cinéma et attraction. Pour une nouvelle histoire
du cinématographe. /Paris: CNRS.
Gubern, R. (2005). /Del bisonte a la realidad virtual: La escena y el
laberinto/. Madrid: Anagrama.
Lévy, P. (1998). /Becoming Virtual: Reality in the Digital Age. /New
York: Plenum Press.[MB1]
<http://www.revistaatalante.com/index.php?journal=atalante&page=announcement&op=view&path%5B%5D=86#_msocom_1>
Manovich, L. (2001). /El lenguaje de los nuevos medios de comunicación:
la imagen en la nueva era digital/. Barcelona: Paidós.
Quintana, A. (2011). /Después del cine. Imagen y realidad en la era
digital/. Barcelona: Acantilado.
Rodowick, D.N. (2007). /The Virtual Life of Film. /Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
/L'Atalante. Revista de estudios cinematográficos/ accepts submissions
of unpublished essays on topics related to film theory and/or praxis
that stand out for their innovative nature. Articles should focus on
approaches to the cinematographic fact made preferably from the
perspectives of historiography or audiovisual analysis. Those texts that
approach novel objects of study with rigorous and well-evidenced
methodologies will be appreciated. Articles that take as their main
reference the processes of signification through the analysis of the
audiovisual form and/or the narratological elements specific to our
field, focusing on methodologies specifically related to the treatment
of the image will be favoured in the selection process. Although we
accept works with other methodologies that approach the filmic fact from
transversal perspectives (Cultural Studies, philological approaches,
etc.) we consider that the main interest of the journal is located on
the studies that take the specifically cinematographic expressive tools
as the main elements of discourse. Likewise, texts that are not limited
to describing, enumerating or summarizing details of the plot, but that
rigorously apply a specific and well-evidenced analysis methodology,
reaching particular and novel results, will be given priority.
Below are a few aspects to keep in mind:
* Submissions must be original and must conform to the submission
guidelines of the journal and to the standards and scientific rigour
expected of an academic publication [see SUBMISSIONS section
<http://www.revistaatalante.com/index.php?journal=atalante&page=about&op=submissions>]
* Submissions will be evaluated for the originality of the topic
explored, especially if it relates to an issue not previously
addressed in the publication. Submissions dealing with topics
previously addressed in the journal may be rejected. The content of
the issues published to date can be consulted on the journal's website.
* All submissions will undergo an external peer review process that
will respect the anonymity of both authors and reviewers (double
blind peer review) in an effort to prevent any possibility of bias.
In the event of a very high number of submissions, the Editorial
Board will make a prior selection of the articles to be peer
reviewed, choosing the articles deemed the most appropriate for the
issue. Failure to observe the submission guidelines and/or standards
of originality and academic rigour will result in rejection of the
submission by the Editorial Board without external review.
* Authors of accepted submissions will be contacted within six months.
* Articles (which should be between 5,000 and 7,000 words including
all sections) must be submitted via the website of the journal as
.rtf, .odt or .docx files, using the template provided for this
purpose. Files containing the author's statement (.pdf) and any
images (.psd, .png, .jpg, .tiff) must be uploaded to the website as
complementary files. A detailed version of the submission guidelines
can be found at the SUBMISSIONS
<http://www.revistaatalante.com/index.php?journal=atalante&page=about&op=submissions> section.
Any articles that fail to meet these requirements will be rejected
automatically.
* The selected articles will be published in a bilingual edition
(Spanish and English).
* If the original manuscript is in Spanish, the authors of the texts
accepted for publication must pay the costs that result from the
translation to English or revision—in the case of providing, along
with the original, a translated version—of their article. In all
cases, and in order to guarantee the quality of the translations and
the unity of linguistic criteria, the text must be translated or
reviewed by the translator recommended by the journal, a freelance
professional specialised in Film Studies. His work will be paid in
advance and via Paypal by the authors.
* If the original manuscript is in English*, the authors of the texts
accepted for publication must provide a professional translation to
Spanish. [*L'Atalante may also suggest a revision by the translator
recommended by the journal for Non-English speaking authors.]
* /L'Atalante/ does not offer any compensation for published articles.
For more information: (info /at/ revistaatalante.com)
<mailto:(info /at/ revistaatalante.com)>
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