[ecrea] NECSUS Autumn 2019_#Gesture - Call for Submissions

*NECSUS Autumn 2019_#Gesture - Call for Submissions* 
<https://necsus-ejms.org/necsus-autumn-2019_gesture/>*__***

NECSUS - European Journal of Media Studies

Guest editor: Miriam de Rosa (Coventry University)

A visible action working as utterance, according to Giorgio Agamben 
gesture is ‘the exhibition of mediality’. It unveils a process and 
crystallises a meaning into a temporary form, making visible and yet 
relying upon a sense of deep tactility and materiality, especially when 
it is performed by the hands. Eliciting the transmission of a meaning, 
operating in light of a function, and opening up the realm of 
potentiality, as well as those of action and creativity, gesture shares 
much with media in their essence. Vilem Flusser associates it with many 
areas of and beyond media, and analyses it as a process organised after 
a mechanism of expression and articulation of a certain meaning as well 
as of affects. Flusser also dwells on what he calls ‘the gesture of 
making’ – a formulation which immediately draws attention to the link 
between the concept of gesture and creativity. This special section of 
NECSUS aims at gathering contributions studying the concept of gesture 
in a /non/-medium specific perspective, encouraging instead an 
interdisciplinary reflection which will shed light onto the many aspects 
and forms of media in relation to this key theme.

Historically, the fascination for the gesture and the subsequent 
interest in scrutinising, fragmenting, and isolating it in its 
components allowed techniques such as chronophotography and the interest 
towards body mechanics to pursue several experimentations leading to a 
number of artistic endeavours, eventually feeding into the then-new 
medium of cinema. Contemporary and modern cinematic forms as stop motion 
or pin screen animation, and aesthetics such as slow cinema may be 
genealogically connected to these practices. Pivotal film theoreticians 
also offer important reflections on gestures, interpreting them in a 
variety of ways (from Eisenstein to Balasz, and more recently from 
Mulvey to Bellour, from José Gill to Blüminger and Lavin). At the same 
time, other key aspects of cinema are closely connected to the idea of 
gesture. Observations of the actor both in bodily presence, proxemics, 
and performative skills to convey a cognitive or affective meaning 
allows for another reflection on this topic. Offering the opportunity 
for an alternative reading of bodies and affects, gestures also lend 
themselves as features of gendered and specific cultural identities, 
shaping them into actions performed by ‘volatile bodies’. Also worth 
considering is the array of gestures performed by the spectator or the 
gallery visitor: similar to the actor, and yet with a completely 
different degree of freedom and continuity, spectators/visitors also put 
into play actions and motions constituting and constantly renovating an 
etiquette of moving image reception. Their memory of the medium as well 
as their pragmatic and emotional connection with the medium they are 
relating themselves to can therefore be described by way of a gestural 
reading.

The emphasis on motion and the fascination for movement both in 
conceptual and pragmatic/symbolic terms is not limited to cinema. As 
George Didi-Huberman’s compelling reflection on anachronisms and recent 
curatorial projects (e.g. /Soulèvements/, 2017) thoroughly demonstrate, 
contemporary artists reflect on the classic theme of aesthetic forms 
activating a ‘procedural thinking’ that may echo Flusser’s ‘gesture of 
making’, and tend to look into gesturality in order to focus on the 
riveting connections between resemblance and representation via the 
concepts of contact and print. Furthermore, when the medium involved is 
not relying on the big screen, a focus on gestures can represent an 
interesting prism for looking at media users as they express their 
agency; an observation of this can offer the opportunity for inquiry and 
develop a study of the user’s design of experience, as well as her way 
of inhabiting space, the socio-cultural context, and her relationship 
with material culture. On an epistemological level, looking into 
gestures may unveil interesting linkages between making and thinking, 
and thereby elicit a reconsideration of the relationship and hierarchy 
between theory and practice. Compared to ‘artisans and alchemists’, our 
hands – as Henri Focillon defines them in his /Praise of Hands /(1972) – 
enable creative and innovative ways of making to think and thinking to 
make: in such a framework, gesture is that which gives shape and 
consistency to thought. In this vein, it is possible to frame the strong 
development of practice-based research and pedagogy, as well as of 
applied and hands-on approaches. Key terms in this sense include 
videographic studies, DIY, artisanal, and experimental media practices 
ranging from organic chemical photo-film development to hacking.

This call for submissions invites contributions dealing with, but not 
limited to, #Gesture and the following topics:

# still and moving images (issues of temporality, slow cinema, animation)

# affects and bodies (of the actor, the spectator, the film, as well as 
key elements for a gendered body)

# action, creation and media

# material culture and tactility beyond haptic cinema (issues of 
spectatorship; touch and screens; media and ergonomics)

# mediation and potentiality

# making/thinking: practice-based/artistic research, videographic 
practices as research, DYI, the return of the lab as research 
environment and style in media studies

# the digital and post-digital (memes and their circulation; selfies; 
online tracking; VR and AR; print)

We look forward to receiving abstracts of 300 words, 3-5 bibliographic 
references, and a short biography of 100 words by 15 January 2019 to 
(g.decuir /at/ aup.nl) <mailto:(g.decuir /at/ aup.nl)>. On the basis of selected 
abstracts, writers will be invited to submit full manuscripts 
(5,000-7,000 words, revised abstract, 4-5 keywords), which will 
subsequently go through a double-blind peer review process.

NECSUS also accepts abstract submissions on a rolling basis throughout 
the year for a wide variety of articles on a number of themes related to 
media studies but not necessarily connected to a special section topic, 
in addition to proposals for festival, exhibition, and book reviews, as 
well as audiovisual essays. Please note that we do not accept full 
manuscripts for consideration without an invitation.

Access our submission guidelines at 
https://necsus-ejms.org/guidelines-for-submission/

https://necsus-ejms.org/necsus-autumn-2019_gesture/


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