*Visible Evidence 18*
*New York City*
*August 11-14, 2011*
* *
*Call for Proposals*
Visible Evidence, an international conference on documentary film and media,
now in its 18th year, will convene August 11-14, 2011 in New York City, at
Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and other locations around
the city. Visible Evidence 18 will feature the history, theory, and practice
of documentary and non-fiction cinema, television, video, audio recording,
digital media, photography, and performance, in a wide range of panels,
workshops, plenary sessions, screenings, and special events. Proposals for
panels and presentations are invited, according to the following suggestions
and guidelines:
*Threads and Themes*
As in previous editions of the conference, proposed panels and presentations
may address *any* aspect of documentary and non-fiction film, media, and
performance, or *any* theoretical or historical approach to documentary. At
the same time, Visible Evidence 18 will draw upon both the location of the
2011 conference and themes we?d like to see continued from previous
conferences; proposals in keeping with these directions will be especially
welcome. Possible themes include (but are not limited to):
¶ *Life during wartime*: in/visible evidence (photography, film, video,
sound, print, and new media documentation) of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq
and Afghanistan, as well as on the ?home fronts? and the ?black sites? of
the ?War on Terror? since 2001; local and global activist documentary
responses to the September 11th attacks and their aftermath; documentary
media of witness, testimony, and memory in the service of cultural and
political movements for and against war; censorship, the law, and the sound
or image of war; the un/authorized circulation of documents of the conflicts
in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ?War on Terror? at large, or wars of other
eras.
¶ *Archiving, preservation, and the material of actuality and documentary
*: lost and found documentary film, television, and recording; issues of
storage, censorship, access, copyright, acquisition, appropriation,
circulation and re-circulation of artifacts and records of documentary
culture and practice; regional, national, and transnational collection and
transmission of documentary history; museological, curatorial,
technological, legal, and financial technics in documentary archives; new
critical and creative approaches to visual, auditory, and print records and
documents.
¶ *Talking heads and other documentary sounds*: voice, music, noise,
scoring, and audition in/and/of documentary radio, video, film, theater,
performance.
¶ *Radical/experimental New York*: individual, collective, and
institutional practices of non-mainstream documentary and non-fiction art
and media in New York City, 1890s to the present; New York as topic, source,
location, and crucible of oppositional and avant-garde documentary practice;
the city symphony in the five boroughs; New York City and state in the
history of alternative, community, and public access television and video;
the New York avant-gardes in international context.
¶ *Transnational cities*: New York and other urban spaces as loci of
im/migration in documentary; urban documentary as form of intercultural
practice; terrains of nation and ethnicity in documented cities; the
?undocumented? citizen and the ethics, politics, labor, or aesthetics of
documentary.
*
*
*Panel, Workshop, and Paper Guidelines and Deadlines*
* *
o Each panel or workshop session will be allotted one hour and forty-five
minutes.
o *Panels* will consist of *three* papers of *no more than 20 minutes each
*. Panel chairs will ensure that *at least thirty minutes *is available for
questions and discussion following paper presentations.
o *Workshops* will consist of between *four and six* opening statements,
in which workshop leaders can present *up to* *thirty minutes* *collectively
*of prepared or informal material. However, the emphasis of workshops is on
the open and unstructured exchange of ideas and techniques between all
workshop participants, and topics suited to this format will be given
priority.
* *
o *Individual paper proposals* may be submitted to the open call (see
below).
o *Proposed panels *and* workshops *may be preconstituted, either through
public calls for submissions or individual solicitation. *Panel *and *workshop
calls *may be posted publicly until December 15, 2010 in the Panels and
Workshops Forums <http://visibleevidence.org/forum/index.php> area of the
Visible Evidence website (http://www.visibleevidence.org/forum). Chairs of
proposed panels and workshops must accept proposals until January 1, 2011.
Prospective chairs are encouraged to require standard formatting of
individual proposals (250-300 words; descriptive title; bibliography; brief
bio, including history of VE participation) to streamline panel submission
process.
o Proposals for *preconstituted panels, workshops, and* *papers* *for the
open call* may be submitted for consideration at the
Submission<http://visibleevidence.org/18/>area of the Visible Evidence
18 website (
http://visibleevidence.org/xviii/) by January 15, 2011. Standard proposal
formats will be expected for both individual presentations and
workshops/panels.
*
*
o Participants may present in a workshop or on a panel, but not both.
Chairs may present only on their own panel or workshop. Prospective
participants may submit to a panel or workshop, or to the open call, but not
both; prospective members of rejected panels may opt to have their
individual presentation proposals reconsidered for the open call.**
*
*
Complete submission instructions for each category of participation can be
found at visibleevidence.org and the dedicated conference website (
http://visibleevidence.org/18/). <http://visibleevidence.org/18/> Sign up at
the VE18 conference website <http://visibleevidence.org/18/> to submit and
register.
*Questions? Email conference coordinator Jonathan Kahana, Department of
Cinema Studies, NYU ((jonathan.kahana /at/ nyu.edu)); subject line: VE18 question.
*
* *
*Now see what develops <http://visibleevidence.org/pdf/visev18.pdf>.*
*A PDF version of this CFP is available at the Visible Evidence website:
http://www.visibleevidence.org*
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