[Commlist] CFP (Deadline Extended): "Dance and New Tech", Documenta Journal

The deadline for submissions to a special issue of /Documenta/ titled 
*“Dance and New Tech: A.I., V.R., MoCap, Blockchain and the New 
Frontiers We are Designing for the Field”* has been extended to *August 
31^st , 2023*. /Documenta /is a journal focusing on theater, 
performance, and media, published by Ghent University. The nature of 
this issue is interdisciplinary and we welcome submissions from 
communication and media studies scholars. Please find the full CFP below 
for your reference. If you have any questions, please feel free to 
contact Jorge Poveda Yánez ((jpove001 /at/ ucr.edu) <mailto:(jpove001 /at/ ucr.edu)>) 
and Rory Fewer ((rfewe001 /at/ ucr.edu) <mailto:(rfewe001 /at/ ucr.edu)>).

/////////////////////

*_Call for Papers for Ghent University’s Journal /Documenta/_*

*“Dance and New Tech: A.I., V.R., MoCap, Blockchain and the New 
Frontiers We are Designing for the Field” *

What are the new frontiers we expect for dance to break through, to draw 
from, to reiterate, to simulate? Alongside this, what are the new 
frameworks that we need to account for such transformations? The 
digitization of dance or dance data is challenging the conceptual 
frameworks championed by the humanities based on identity, meaning, and 
representation.  To which extent is it useful to employ previously known 
approaches to dance and performance and when do they start limiting our 
vision? But if identity and its markers, encompassed by their 
meaning-making potential, are not adept at contending with A.I. 
generated dancers, V.R. environments, or gestures encrypted in the 
blockchain, then what is? This is the blank that we expect proponents to 
fill in; by sharing their own case studies/processes/reflections on 
dance and new technology; along with the new frameworks that arise to 
account for them.

Katherine Hayles (2018) suggests that when working with new 
technologies, instead of thinking of representation or identity, we 
think of patterns, which for the topic of this CFP implies thinking of 
the specific lineages that gestures trace from human bodies to machines 
and back; either as kinemes or data. For this call, we are interested in 
building a publication that combines aesthetic, scientific, cultural, 
and experimental gazes that have both, human movement and digital 
technologies at their center, without reifying the known boundaries 
between these two domains but rather allowing us to understand how they 
intersect/interpolate one another. To be able to grapple with the 
palpable effects of technology across bodies, machines, devices, flesh, 
land, creative routes, and research, we signal toward “material 
thinking” (Hayles, 2018) to allow proponents to unveil how their 
processes traversed or arrived at/through/to the digital, as part of a 
broader continuum of “digital-carnalities” (Citro, 2021) either for 
pedagogic, artistic, interactive, or academic purposes, more broadly.

Simultaneously, the inclusion of the dancing body in the digital does 
not happen in a socio-political vacuum; because of this, there is a 
continuous calling to account for the racial and gender differentials 
that persist, as bodies and their movement become digitized. In a 
dystopian turn, A.I. facial recognition models keep misgendering black 
women, video game companies keep misappropriating the dance steps of 
BIPOC communities for profit, and fem-presenting users within the 
metaverse keep experiencing sexual harassment at disproportional rates. 
Therefore, without suggesting the advent of a post-racial, post-gender 
condition, dance in the digital space is the perfect case study to 
re-think sociability and facilitate hinging conceptual jumps.

We welcome submissions of a maximum of *8,000 words in the form of 
argumentative essays, performative writings, and non-conventional 
contributions*, around the following topics:


- Generative choreographic methods on-and-off chain

- A.I. dancing models

- (Re)configuration of subjectivities within VR environments

- Transmission/safeguarding of dance mediated by digital technology

- Affectsimpacting bodies and devices, such as digital-carnalities 
(Citro, 2021)

- Instrumentalizing digital technologies to highlight and protect 
indigenous/traditional creativity

- Critical approaches to the cosplay of racial and gender markers 
afforded by avatarization in videogamesand other virtual environments

- “Encryption” of the dancing bodies through NFT and blockchain 
architectures

- Political and legal consequences of digitizing and reproducing dance 
as data

- Rhythm and ecological affordances across human and virtual bodies

- Datafication of dance and cognitive automation

- Re-framing human-computer interactions through human-and more 
than-human cosmologies

- Fictional or speculative approaches to dance and new tech.

- Radical uses of new technologies and the body to resist fascism, 
imperialism, and war

- Visceral data and big data in dance

- Establishment of new economies for communities of dance practitioners 
through Web 3

- Erotization of virtual dancing avatars, revisited economies of desire

- Queerying possibilities afforded by the incursion of the dancing body 
in the digital

- Composite-like dancers made out of bits of data retrieved from 
different bodies

*
*

*Guidelines for Submissions*

**

Proposals should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words and will be accepted 
in the form of editable files made with a word processing software 
(Microsoft Word preferred) and sent by email to (jpove001 /at/ ucr.edu) 
<mailto:(jpove001 /at/ ucr.edu)>. Please include your surname in the file name 
of the main submission document. In a separate document, please include 
a short biography of the author(s) (approximately 100 words) and the 
title of the submission.

Submission of a proposal will be taken to imply that it represents 
original, unpublished work not under consideration for publication 
elsewhere. Before submitting a proposal, we encourage you to visit our 
website (www.documenta.ugent.be <http://www.documenta.ugent.be>) and 
familiarize yourself with the journal (*MLA style*).

Drafts should be anonymized and contain the following: *title, abstract, 
main text, endnotes, and bibliography*. Proposals should not exceed the 
8,000-word count (notes and bibliography excluded).

Submission of images and other visual material is welcome. It will be 
the author's responsibility to obtain permission for copyright and to 
use the material in print. Authors may find further information on 
permissions and copyright here: 
https://documenta.ugent.be/about/submissions 
<https://documenta.ugent.be/about/submissions>.


The first step upon receipt of the paper will be a preliminary review by 
our editorial board committee. If the paper passes this stage, it will 
be sent for peer review. /Documenta /does not charge fees from authors.

*_DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: AUGUST 31, 2023._*

*References:*


- Citro, S. (2021). Intercultural Reflections on Digital-Carnalities in 
Dance. In Hayde Lachino et al. (eds.) Dance in Times of Crisis and of 
Re(ex)istence/Resistance. UNAM.

- Hayles, N. K. (2018). How we became posthuman: Virtual bodies in 
cybernetics, literature, and informatics (2nd ed.). University of 
Chicago Press.

- Lewis, J. E., Arista, N., Pechawis, A., & Kite, S. (2018). Making Kin 
with the Machines. Journal of Design and Science. 
https://doi.org/10.21428/bfafd97b <https://doi.org/10.21428/bfafd97b>.

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