SOMATICS & TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE 2012 – 22/23 JUNE

Aims and Scope

The conference aims to:


• Establish new communities of knowledge exchange
• Promote interdisciplinary discussion around the impact of body-based practices and principles of embodiment, sensuality, movement, ergonomy etc. in artistic practice and theory
• Enquire into innovations in artistic, scientific and philosophical perspectives concerning the somatic
• Advance discussion around the role of the somatic in interface design and spectatorial experience
• Evolve new approaches to the digital representation of time, space and locality
through corporeal experience
• Investigate user engagement and participation
as a sensual experience
• Explore the impact of new narratives and design in the Arts through the body
• Promote discussion involving new body-based approaches in education and the digital

Themes and Questions:

Encouraging engagement with a number of disciplines, art and performance practices, technologies and theory, papers, works and presentations are invited that address the following issues, and introduce new themes and ideas:

• In the light of the infiltration of technologies in daily life that facilitate physical and organisational tasks, is a Cartesian split between body knowledge and conceptual processes still of relevance today?
• What role does dance play in promoting the recognition of the role of somatics in digital practices, and in challenges to the Cartesian split?
• What do terms such as embodiment, the augmented body, interaction, kinesthetic empathy, sensual interfaces, the haptic actually convey? Do they have the same meaning for all artistic disciplines?
• What are the chief signifiers of embodiment and presence in art?
• Could new forms of somatic expression be explored/developed through technology?
• How can the body be seen to inform technological interfaces in the arts in the 21st century, and interrelational processes between awareness, biological function and environment?
• What kinds of dialogues and new creative expressions emerge between somatics and technologies in art? In daily life?

Call for Papers and art projects*

Contributions are invited which might consider the following topics:

• Multimedia theatre and dance
• Virtual and physical bodies
• Motion-capture technologies
• Web-based performance and virtual performance spaces
• Space, embodiment, experience
• Real-time video, graphics, music, lighting control

*Please note that in the light of current budgetary restraints, we will only be able to house works that are “light”. Artists will be required to come with their own equipment and any special technical support.

A special issue of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, Intellect Press will publish a peer-reviewed edition of the proceedings. Eds. Prof. Sarah Rubidge and Dr. Andrea Davidson. Publication in 2013.

Submission requirements

Abstracts should be of no more than 1200 words and sent as a single PDF format not exceeding 4 MB. A short biography of no more than 250 words should also be provided.

Art projects should include a clear indication of any special technical requirements as well as possible duration and space requirements, and DVD and/or access to web documentation of existent works.

Submissions will only be accepted electronically.

Notification of selection: (see Programme Schedule)

Conference dates: 22/23 June 2012, University of Chichester, Chichester, UK

Submissions to: somatech@chi.ac.uk

Conference registration is available here >  Conference Registration & Booking Form

Contact
Email: a.davidson@chi.ac.uk or somatech@chi.ac.uk

Tel. +44 (0)1243 816300