[Commlist] Documentary Ecologies cfp - Visible Evidence/FilmForum 2022

The 29th edition of /Visible Evidence/, the annual international 
conference on documentary film and media, is organized in partnership 
with FilmForum 2023, the 30h edition of Udine’s International Film and 
Media Studies Conference and the 20th of the MAGIS International Film 
and Media Studies Spring School, and will be hosted at the University of 
Udine, Italy, September 6-9, 2023.

/Visible Evidence XXIX/will address the history, theory, practice and 
pedagogy of documentary and non-fiction cinema, television, video, audio 
recording, digital media, photography, VR, games and performance in a 
wide range of panels, seminars, workshops, plenary sessions, and 
screenings. Proposed panels, presentations, seminars, workshops, and 
screenings may address any aspect of documentary screen cultures, 
histories, theories, and practices.

Yet, we especially encourage proposals that think about the documentary 
in ecological terms. In other words, we particularly welcome proposals 
that look at documentaries as dynamic systems that result from an 
assemblage of multiply-connected and interdependent agents. As Helen De 
Michiel and Patricia Zimmerman (2013) have noted, the 
twenty-first-century documentary characterizes itself as a “fluid, 
collaborative, shape-shifting, responsive environment for encounters”. 
Consequently, in order to fully understand some of its manifestations, 
such as for instance the online ones, it has become key to look at 
documentaries as ecosystems situated in complex media environments 
(e.g., see Nash, Hight & Summerhayes 2014). In fact, on closer 
inspection, the documentary in its many forms has always been a living 
environment responsive to technological, social, and political shifts, 
eager to embrace ever-new ways of capturing the real.But, how have 
documentary ecologies changed over time? Which agents and in what terms 
have contributed to this continuous reshaping of the documentary and the 
establishment of its various faces?  How do the various agents of 
documentary ecosystems interact with and shape each other? Does the 
cohabitation of the “old” and the new complicate this interplay? Indeed, 
even if new technologies, infrastructures, platforms, and modes of 
representation have kept and continue to arise, older ones often do not 
disappear. They simply mutate, hybridize and evolve, a fact that renders 
the documentary landscape increasingly composite and thus makes looking 
at bigger pictures, as considering the documentary in ecological terms 
implicates, become all the more important.

These are only some of the questions that the conference wishes to 
explore in the hope to identify what more can thinking ecologically help 
us uncover about past and present documentary discourses and practices 
as well as which new research pathways the adoption of this perspective 
can open.

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

-From old to social media: documentary and evolving technologies

-Documentary and emerging platforms

-Collaborative documentary (e.g., co-creation, co-design, crowd-sourcing)

-Interactive, immersive, and participatory documentaries (i-docs, VR 
documentaries, docugames, etc.)

-Documentary and animation

-Hybridity and documentaries (mockumentary, docudrama, docufiction)

-Convergence, transmediality, and the documentary

-Crossing national borders: transnational documentaries (e.g., 
co-production practices, multi-location documentaries, etc.)

-Documentary’s environments, documenting our environment

-Documentary soundscapes

-Archives, histories, museums, and the documentary

-The infrastructures of documentary

-The materiality of documentary and its ecological impact

-Activism and documentary

-The ethical challenges of documenting the real

-Race, gender, sexuality, and the documentary

-Documentary audiences

Conference structure

The conference will be articulated in panel, workshop, seminar, and 
screening sessions, each of which will be allotted one hour and 
forty-five minutes. Workshops are envisioned as an open and unstructured 
exchange of ideas and techniques between all workshop participants. 
Seminarsare instead conceived as longer conversations around a specific 
topic. For this reason, each seminar topic will be developed over two 
slots to be scheduled on two consecutive days of the conference during a 
time frame that will be devoted just to seminars. Presenters in each 
slot will be required to attend also the other slot devoted to that 
seminar topic. Finally, the conference will also offer screening 
sessions devoted entirely to a single film or a series of short films by 
attending filmmakers, during which the latter will also have the chance 
to discuss their work with the delegates in attendance.

Submission Guidelines

Panelswill consist of 3 or 4 papers of no more than 20 minutes each. 
Panel chairs will ensure that at least twenty minutes are available for 
questions and discussion following paper presentations.

●Panel proposalsrequire a title and a 300-word (max) description of the 
panel itself; 5 keywords that identify the panel’s focus; a title and a 
200-word (max) description of each individual paper; 5 bibliographic 
entries for each paper; and 150-word (max) biographies of each 
participant. The chair of the panel should collect all of the material 
and submit the panel proposal here: 
https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter 
<https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter>

Individual paper proposalsmay be submitted to the open call.Each 
individual presentation will be allotted 20 minutes. Accepted 
presentations will be programmed into panels with other individual 
presentation submissions.

●Individual paper proposals require a title, a 300-word (max) 
description of the paper itself; 5 keywords that identify the paper’s 
focus; 5 bibliographic entries for the paper; and a 150-word biography 
of the participant. Submit an individual paper proposal here: 
https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter 
<https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter>

Workshopswill consist of between five and six opening statements, in 
which workshop leaders can present up to thirty minutes collectively of 
prepared or informal material (5 minutes for each statement). The 
remaining time will be devoted to discussion.

●Workshop proposals require a 300-word (max) description of the workshop 
itself; 5 keywords that identify the workshop’s focus; 50-word (max) 
descriptions of each individual statement; and 150-word (max) 
biographies of each participant. The chair of the workshop should 
collect all of the material and submit the workshop proposal here: 
https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter 
<https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter>

Seminars will consist of between 10 and 12 10-minute presentations, 
aimed at igniting productive conversations about a specific 
documentary-related topic, which will be divided over two slots to be 
scheduled on two consecutive days of the conference. Seminar 
participants will be required to attend both slots. A maximum of 8 
seminar topics will be offered during the conference.Those who wish to 
lead a seminar should submit a proposal that outlines the rationale for 
the topic chosen, the leader’s qualifications, and the pre-conference 
work required.

The seminar leaders whose proposals will be accepted will then be 
responsible for circulating a CFP through the Visible Evidence listserv 
soliciting submissions by the membership for participation in the 
seminar, reading all submissions and selecting seminar participants, 
assigning any pre-conference work, moderating the discussion, and any 
in-seminar work.

Seminars will be open to auditors, who should be considered a core part 
of it and will be asked to read or view all materials assigned by the 
seminar leader and/or the seminar participants.

●Seminar topic proposals require a 450-word (max) outline of the 
proposed seminar topic, the rationale for it, and the pre-conference 
work that will be required of participants; 5 keywords that identify the 
seminar’s focus; and a 150-word (max) biography of the proposed seminar 
leader, highlighting their qualifications for conducting a seminar on 
that specific topic. Submit the proposal for a seminar’s topic here: 
https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter 
<https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter>

Participantsmay present in a workshop or seminar or on a panel, but not 
in more than one. But, participants can present in a panel, seminar, or 
workshop and serve as a chair.

E XXIX also welcomes screening proposals for filmmakers to screen their 
work in a session devoted entirely to a single film or a series of short 
films by attending filmmakers.

●Screening proposals require a 300-word (max) description of the work; a 
link to the screener of the film with total running time; and a 150-word 
biography of the filmmaker. Submit screening proposals here: 
https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter 
<https://auth.oxfordabstracts.com/?redirect=/stages/5139/submitter>

Mode of participation

Mainly in person. Only up to 20% of the conference presentation slots 
will be allocated to online presentations for those who cannot make it 
to Udine in person. For this reason, panel proposals shouldn’t have more 
than 1 presenter participating remotely and workshop proposals more than 
2. You will be asked to specify upon submission the mode of 
participation of your choice. After the acceptance of the proposal, it 
will not be possible to switch from one mode to the other.

Submission deadlines

Seminars: December 12, 2023

All other proposals: January 16, 2023

Seminar leaders will be notified of acceptance/non-acceptance by January 
9, 2023.

All other applicants will be notified of acceptance/non-acceptance by 
February 28, 2023.

For all conference-related inquiries, please email 
(visiblevidence2023 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(visiblevidence2023 /at/ gmail.com)>

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