[Commlist] CFP: 'PerSpace Conference: Performing Space in Film and TV'

On behalf of the research project "Performing Space/Spatializing 
Performance: The Interface between Actors and Space in 21st-Century 
Transnational Cinema” <https://filmspace.unizar.es/>, Andrés Buesa Artal 
is happy to share with you the CFP for our conference 'Performing Space 
in Film and Television', which will take place in person at the 
University of Zaragoza from 26 to 28 May 2027.


*PerSpace Conference: Performing Space in Film and Television*
*University of Zaragoza (Spain)*
*May 26-28, 2027*

*Plenary speakers:*
Mark Shiel (King’s College London)
Sarah Thomas (University of Liverpool)

This conference seeks to explore the intersections between cinematic 
space and performance in film and television. The so-called spatial turn 
that has taken place in film studies in the twenty-first century has 
brought renewed attention to the role of space in audiovisual texts, 
foregrounding the idea that “cinema is primarily a spatial system” 
(Shiel 2001, 6). This understanding of cinematic space encompasses not 
only its narrative and stylistic construction but also its inextricable 
relationship with the social spaces and real places in which it is 
rooted. Within this spatial system, actors occupy a central yet often 
overlooked role as agents who contribute to the construction of 
cinematic space through performance. Far from being mere elements of the 
mise-en-scène, actors’ bodies, faces, voices, gestures, and movements, 
as well as the fictional characters they embody, are integral to the 
construction of audiovisual spaces. At the same time, space shapes and 
affects the actors’ performances, influencing how they move and interact 
with their surroundings. Space is thus not merely a backdrop for 
performance, but a central dimension of it. Yet, the growing interest in 
performance within film studies, which has stressed that “performance 
elements should be given their due as integral components of a film” 
(Baron and Carnicke 2008, 61), has paid insufficient attention to how 
space shapes performance and stardom. Likewise, scholarship on cinematic 
space has seldom considered the contribution of actors’ performances to 
the construction of filmic space. These two strands of scholarship have 
rarely engaged with one another, leaving the complex and rich 
interrelationship between space and performance largely unexplored.

This conference seeks to address this double dynamic by approaching 
actors and spaces as part of an interlocking continuum, understanding 
actors and the characters they embody as essential components of 
cinematic spaces and places. In that sense, the affective turn in 
geography, particularly its emphasis on the relationship between the 
body and space, offers a productive connecting point with performance. 
Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan conceptualises space as “embodied”: space is 
structured through the body and has an impact on the body. Similarly, 
Kirsten Simonsen states that “the body is always in place and is 
inherently spatial” (2007). Michel de Certeau, in turn, understands 
space users as agents capable of transforming the spatial order through 
their practices. Applying this perspective to actors’ bodies opens up 
new avenues for exploring the reciprocal relationship between space and 
performance.

In bringing together film space and performance studies, we invite 
scholars to engage with some of the following questions: How do actors’ 
bodies, voices and gestures produce and transform cinematic spaces and 
places? In what ways do locations, sets and screen geometries enable, 
restrict or reshape performance? How do film scale, format, framing and 
distance determine the interactions between the actors’ performance and 
space? To what extent is space embodied by characters, or the other way 
around? How do cinematic spaces contribute to the construction or 
deconstruction of a star persona? How does the characters’ engagement 
with space produce and project affects and subjectivity? How do generic 
conventions and performances combine to produce distinctive spatial 
relationships across film and television? How do questions of gender, 
race, class, age and disability shape the ways performers inhabit 
cinematic space? Contributions that open up other lines of enquiry are 
equally welcome. While particular attention may be paid to contemporary 
film and television, the conference welcomes contributions examining 
audiovisual texts from any period, including historical perspectives and 
studies of earlier cinematic traditions.

Areas to be explored include, but are not limited to:

  * Actors, characters, and the construction of cinematic space
  * The spatial dimensions of acting styles and performance traditions
  * Stardom, celebrity and the construction of film spaces and places
  * Genre, performance, and the spatial conventions of film and television
  * Gender, race, class, sexuality and the spatial politics of screen
    performance
  * Affect, performance, and space
  * The sonic construction of cinematic space: voices, noises, sound
  * Historical approaches to the relationship between cinematic space
    and performance
  * Questions of in/visibility in relation to space and performance:
    off-screen space, absence, and the limits of performance
  * Synthetic/AI-generated performance
  * Transnational mobilities and actors of the borderlands
  * Age, embodiment, and cinematic space
  * Performing spaces of childhood and youth
  * Character, blocking, and the choreography of cinematic space
  * Directing actors in space: staging, movement, and screen performance

This conference is organized by members of the research project 
"Performing Space/Spatializing Performance: The Interface between Actors 
and Space in 21st-Century Transnational Cinema” 
<https://filmspace.unizar.es/> (PID2024-155365NB-I00) funded by the 
Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

*Guidelines for submission:
*Please submit your proposals via this online form 
<https://forms.gle/AquBcjaKk15su57L8> by 29 January 2027. Submissions 
should consist of a 250-word abstract (excluding references) and a 
100-word short bio, both in English. Notification of acceptance will be 
sent by the end of February 2027.
Each presentation will be allocated 15 minutes.

*Key dates:
*Paper proposal: 29 January 2027
Notification of acceptance: 28 February 2027
Conference dates: 26-28 May 2027

*Organising committee
*Andrés Buesa, Julia Echeverría, Andrea Regueira Martín, Fernando 
Sánchez López

*For more information, please visit the website*: 
https://filmspace.unizar.es/perspace-conference-2027/


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