We would like to say a very big thank you to all those who attended the conference on Saturday and, in particular, to those who presented their work. We were very pleased with the event and thought that your presentations were excellent and inspired many fruitful discussions.

Please keep the discussions going! You will find the contact email addresses of all the speakers at the back of the conference programme booklet should you wish to stay in contact. Also, if you have an ongoing project you would like to promote, we would be happy to put this onto this blog for others to see.

Finally, our keynote Dr Duncan White also sends his thanks for your papers. Duncan also wanted to let you know that there is an annual PhD symposium he is involved with which might be of interest to some of you. You can find out more information here: http://sensingsite.blogspot.co.uk

Thank you again for your participation and helping to make our event such a success.

For those of you travelling to Canterbury tomorrow morning please be aware that weather warnings have been issued and this may affect your journey. You are advised to check for updates before you travel: http://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/

We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

Please also remember to advise us on any special dietary requirements by emailing mergingmedia2014@gmail.com by 29th January as well.

We look forward to seeing on the 1st!

The registration fee for the conference is £15. This fee includes entrance and participation in the conference, and all food and refreshments for the day. You can pay this online by following the link:

http://store.kent.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=1&deptid=26&catid=158&prodid=589

Please could you complete your payment by Wednesday 29^th January 2014.

Please note: if you have any special dietary requirements, then send these along to mergingmedia2014@gmail.com by the same date.

We are delighted to announce that the confirmed keynote speaker for Merging Media will be Dr Duncan White (Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London).

Dr White’s research interests include: the crossover between experimental film; theories of space; performance and reception; written and visual media; and poetry.

More information about Dr White’s research can be found here: http://www.arts.ac.uk/research/research-staff/a-z/dr-duncan-white/

Recent Research (taken from Arts website):

“I am currently working on a book entitled Art After the Destruction of Experience. I am the lead author and co-editor of Expanded Cinema: Art Performance Film (Tate Publishing 2011), an in-depth account of the histories of Expanded Cinema focusing on questions around notions of space, time and spectatorship in experimental live film and video. I am also working on event-based research projects that include, “Light Writing”, which considers the rich and varied use of text in artists’ film and video and “Flicker and Hum” which explores the relationship between film and experiments in sound. I am also interested in experimental writing practices.”

Books/journal articles

• 2013: Journal Article ‘Art After the Destruction of Experience: DIAS and Experimental Film in Britain’,Millennium Film Journal ed. by Grahame Weinbren
• 2012: Chapter ‘Media Prepositions for ‘Platon’s Mirror’: Echo/ Shadow/Light’ in Andreas Beitin, Leonhard Emmerling, Blair French (eds) Platon’s Mirror (Walther Koenig Books)
• 2012: 7 poems ETZ (Journal) ed. by Pete Spence
• 2011: Book co-author and editor Expanded Cinema: Art Performance Film, with David Curtis, Al Rees and Steven Ball. (Tate Publishing)
• 2011: Journal Article ‘Printology: Film Exercises on Paper’ Sequence ed. by Simon Payne
• 2011: 4 poems Black Box Manifold (Journal) ed. by Adam Piette.
  
• 2010: Journal article ‘From White Calligraphy to Video Semiotics -Takahiko Iimura’s Light Writing’ an Interview with Takahiko Iimura, Afterall, edited by Melissa Gronlund
• 2010: Journal article ‘British Expanded Cinema and the ‘Live Culture’ 1969-1979′, Journal of Visual Culture in Britain Vol. 11, Issue. 1. Published by Routledge. Edited by Ysanne Holt.
• 2010: 2 poems Jacket (journal) ed. by Pam Brown
• 2009: Journal article ”The American Areas”: Place, Language and the Construction of Everyday Life in the Novels of Ben Marcus’, in Jacket, ed. by John Tranter and Pam Brown. Available online here.
• 2009: Journal article ‘Beyond the Frame: Mapping Expanded Cinema’ in Vertigo, ed. Gareth Evans
• 2008: Journal article ‘Unnatural Facts: The Fictions of Robert Smithson’ in Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, Vol.1, no. 2. pp.161-176. Published by Intellect Ltd. Edited by Julia Lockheart and John Wood.

Recent conference papers/events/exhibitions

• 2013: ‘Automatic Writing’ video installation for Publish and Be Damned Book Fair, ICA, London
• 2013: ‘Taking Place’ film screening, Black Maria, Kings Cross Crossing, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design
• 2013: Visual Thinking: Between Sound and Light Camden Arts Centre, London
  
• 2012: ‘Black and Light: Observation and Destruction in Post-War Artists’ Film’, Playing in the Shadows Symposium, Tate Modern, London
• 2012: Platon’s Mirror, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade
• 2012: ‘Expanded Cinema: Art After the Destruction of Experience’, École des Beaux-Arts, Paris
• 2012: Mischa Kuball: Platon’s Mirror, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, London
• 2012: ‘Lighting the Cave’ Symposium, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design
• 2011: ‘Light Writing’, Sheffield Institute of Arts, Sheffield University
• 2010-11: Light Writing, Banner Repeater, London
• 2010: ‘Divisions/Revisions: Art Film and Video in the UK 1970-79,’ Moving Images: Artists & Video / Film, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (September 2010)
• 2010: ‘Dirty Words: The Erotics of Writing in Film’,Cinematic Desire Conference, CUNY, New York (March 2010)
• Modern (April 2009)

Further updates about Dr White’s keynote address shall be posted soon.

Merging Media: An Interdisciplinary Conference on the Study of Hybrid Arts

Call for Papers

Saturday 1st February 2014

University of Kent, Canterbury

Although we naturally recognise different artistic media as distinct forms – music, painting, sculpture, film, dance, theatre, architecture, animation, and so on – we also understand that these mediums can nevertheless have a meaningful dialogue in the creation of new artworks. Over the course of art history there have been numerous occasions when different media forms have merged or been juxtaposed for artistic purposes. These intermedial examples have seen word and image intertwined on the page in the illuminated books of William Blake; experimentation with the partnership between painting and music in Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition; performance and music mixed in Variations by John Cage; the deconstruction of paintings through digital visual manipulation in Peter Greenaway’s lectures; and the recent National Theatre Live and Royal Opera House theatrical performances being broadcast onto cinema screens. These instances – and many more – demonstrate a long tradition of medium boundaries being crossed, media being combined to accentuate one another, or the creation of a new medium altogether.

It is particularly relevant to consider the subject of merging media at a time when discussions of media archaeologies, media convergence and the transmedia phenomena permeate contemporary academic debates. This conference seeks to engage with these topics by exploring the theories and histories of hybrid art, as well as the effect new technologies have upon our understanding of this concept. The emergence of digital technologies is an important strand in this investigation because it has both facilitated the creation of new art forms (such as 3D digital animation) and generated the remediation of older forms (for example, the digitisation of literature for consumption on computerised devices, and new forms of interaction with fine art online through virtual galleries).

This one-day conference is for postgraduate students and early career researchers whose work incorporates the interdisciplinary topic of artistic hybridity and intermediality. We invite proposals for 20-minute presentations (individual papers or pre-formed 3-paper panels) or performance pieces from candidates across arts and humanities. We welcome papers, panels and performances that investigate “merging media” through a variety of interpretations. Possible research topics for submission can include, but are not limited to:

• Hybridity of forms: case studies which explore instances where two or more established art forms are combined. What is the effect of this hybridisation?
• Hybridity and technology: the impact of new technologies upon intermedial art forms, both past and present.  Does technology facilitate the “merging” of media for artistic purposes, or is this an inevitable side-effect of – and an unavoidable trajectory towards – a larger media convergence culture?
• Hybridity and history: specific case studies of merged media from the past, from Wagner’s conception of gesamtkunstwerk – where all art-forms are united as one total art – to the revolutionary intermedial ‘decadence’ of Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable, and others.
• Hybridity of performance: how performance is incorporated with various art media, from architecture in site-specific performances, to video in multi-media productions. How do we engage with performance through technology? How does the notion of “intermedial” relate to the performance of art?
• Hybridity and the audience: what effect does a “hybrid art” form have upon its audience? How does merging media provide new opportunities for engaging with artworks?
• Hybridity and remix culture: how various art forms are recycled and reused in the establishment of new works of art (e.g. the reprocessing of “found footage” for the purposes of art; fan-made hybrid products).
• Hybridity and modes of production: ways in which hybridisation impacts upon the production or creation of an artwork. What relationship does this production have with the development and influence of new technologies? What implications do intermedial modes have upon the idea of a singular artist? Which organisations or institutions inspire or enable the creation of hybrid art?
• Hybridity and sites of exhibition: what is the relationship between the intermedial art and how it is exhibited? Is there a convergence between performance and exhibition? How is the exhibition of such work impacted by technology? Or is it technological itself (such as the internet)?
• Hybridity and theory: work on the historical or future discourse of intermediality. What implication does contemporary “merging media” hold for theory? How should hybrid arts be theorised and which elements – such as production, exhibition or audience interaction – should be centralised in this scholarly debate?

Please send abstracts (300 words) for proposed papers, panels or performances and a short biographical note to mergingmedia2014@gmail.com

Deadline for submissions is 13^th December 2013. Should you have any queries, please contact us at the e-mail address above.

Conference Organisation Committee

Emre Caglayan, Frances Kamm, Keeley Saunders, Pete Sillett

Web: http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/mergingmedia/

      http://www.kent.ac.uk/arts/news-summary.html?view=128

Twitter: @mergingmedia14