AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

Call for Proposals

Camillo 2.0: Technology, Memory, Experience
Performance Studies international #17

25-29 May 2011, Utrecht, the Netherlands

Camillo 2.0: Technology, Memory, Experience combines science, scholarly
pursuit and art in a five-day program consisting of lectures, presentations
of current research (both theoretical and practical), performances, debates,
and workshops. In addition, hybrid program components, or 'shifts',
introduced by participants or inititiated by the organisers will pave the
way to unconventional presentation situations. This PSi conference is an
initiative of the Theatre Studies department at Utrecht University and
Utrecht's annual Theatre Festival aan de Werf. The conference will be
organized in collaboration with the Utrecht School for the Arts (HKU).

Camillo's Theatre of Memory is a 16th-century invention meant to allow the
spectator access to all existing knowledge via a wooden theatre-shaped
construction. Once world-renowned, Camillo's theatre was forgotten after the
death of its inventor, only to make an impressive comeback in the second
half of the 20th century as a foreshadowing of both computers and the World
Wide Web. Today, technological developments allow more people access to more
information than ever before. These technologies alter what and how much can
be stored; they also transform how memory is shaped, how what is stored is
experienced, how memories become entangled in the here-and-now, and,
finally, even the processes of thinking and imagination. Camillo 2.0:
Technology, Memory, Experience approaches this co-evolution from the vantage
point of performance as a triad of artistic practice, embodiment of
culturally specific symbolic systems, and functional technology.
Within this overarching notion the following focal points are distinguished:

Performing memory
The performing arts haves a long history as a memory machine while also
functioning as a means for questioning the various processes of individual
or collective remembering. What can performance, in both theory and
practice, teach us about the relationship between technology, memory, and
experience? How do the performing arts give space to intermedial
explorations of the possibilities, implications, and consequences of how
divergent technologies mediate the way we remember and experience?

Save As
Camillo's invention took place as developing printing technology allowed for
storage of knowledge and information to move outside the brain. Today the
'performative turn' and the developments of Web 2.0 make the restrictions of
the archive as memory machine tangible and pay homage to the processual,
embodied and (inter)active nature of memory. How do performance and
notations such as repertoire and performative remains provide a perspective
into the possibilities and restrictions of the archive as memory machine?
What can we learn, at this point in time, from re-enactment both as
performative practice and as a mode of thinking?

Ghosts
Technologies of memory facilitate new psychic entities and objects of belief
that, under appropriate circumstances, emerge as self-enunciating entities.
Theatre is haunted by such ghosts, but they populate other media as well.
How might theatre and performance illuminate how these medial 'ghosts' act
as agents of memory and experience, both produced by and emerging from media
technology?

No Match Found
Contemporary technological developments that allow for endlessly expanding
memory storage conceal that memory machines are always simultaneously
technologies of forgetting. This forgetting can be traumatic, and can also
be part of (conscious or unconscious) strategies of exclusion. It can be an
active choice, an act of resistance, or a strategy for survival. How does
performance mediate processes of forgetting? How does it focus its
attention on that which is not or cannot be remembered (trauma and
exclusion); to blind spots, or black holes; to what is lost in translation?

Memory Lab
Presently, science and art (re)connect in exploring the possibilities that
new technologies provide in storing and transferring knowledge. Makers, in
collaboration with scholars, develop new technological means of archiving
and re-experiencing divergent forms of live art. New insights concern not
only archival practices but also reflect upon how technology mediates how
knowledge and experience are transferred, how we think, and what is
considered knowledge. What are the possibilities for and the potential of a
renewed collaboration?

A more extensive description of conference themes and topics can be found at
www.psi17.org.

The organizing committee of PSi #17 invites proposals for individual papers
(20 minute presentations), panels (consisting of 3-4 paper presentations)
and 'shifts'.

Papers
Proposals for individual papers should include a 350-word abstract, title,
and a 150-word bio of the presenter. Proposals for papers are due October 1,
2010.

Panels
Panel proposals and proposals for other discursive formats (roundtable
discussions, position papers, etc.) should include a 350-word abstract
describing the rationale of the panel, 350-word abstracts and titles of the
individual papers (if applicable), and the names and 150-words bios of
participants. Proposals for panels are due October 1, 2010.

Shifts
Continuing the explorations of PSi #15 and #16, we invite proposals for
'shifts' i.e., alternative presentational models that push the boundaries of
the conference presentation. Shifts take the notion of performance in the
broad sense (aesthetic, cultural, durational, etc.) as their organizing
principle. They can accommodate a wide range of formats: various kinds of
performative presentations, round-table discussions on performances
presented, lecture performances, workshops, interactive events, seminars,
etc. They are non-conventional investigations into the themes of the
conference and are designed to accomplish a higher level of interaction
between the conference participants and especially between artistic and
theoretical work. Proposals for shifts should include a 350-word description
of the proposed events and 150-word bios of the organizers of the proposed
shift as well as a clear description of the (technical) facilities required.
Proposals for shifts are due October 1, 2010.

Submissions
All proposals should be submitted online by filling out the submission form
at: www.psi17.org by October 1, 2010.
All proposals will be evaluated by the Organizing Committee of PSi # 17 by
December 15, 2010.

Questions can be directed to conference manager Laura Karreman
(L.L.Karreman@uu.nl). More information can be found at www.psi17.org.

Dr Laura Cull
Lecturer
Performing Arts
Department of the Arts
School of Arts and Social Sciences
Northumbria University
Newcastle upon Tyne

http://northumbria.academia.edu/LauraCull

from Franklin Furnace