CFP: Sound and Bodies in the World

The 8th Annual Graduate Music Society Conference
February 28, 2015
Boston University

We live in a world rich with soundscapes. Whether it is produced by bird calls, machines, the string section of an orchestra, or one’s own voice, sound around us reflect the environment we live in. How we choose to interact with sounds often reveals certain ways of being and knowing in the world. Our bodies are the first receivers of sounds, physically encountering sound waves through a multiplicity of sense. How our brains interpret sound is rooted in bodily and cognitive realities; this is especially true of musical sound, which is shaped by context, acoustics, language, and cultural preconditioning.

 

This conference seeks to encourage interdisciplinary conversation between musicological scholarship and areas ranging from sociology, the humanities, environmental and sound studies, and medicine. We encourage proposals exploring the relationship between sound environments and bodily realities, including (but not limited to) issues of gender, race, sexuality, bodily differences and identities, disability, illness, and wellness.

 

We welcome abstracts for tradition 20-minute papers, 5-minute ‘Ignite’ sessions, and poster presentations. Ignite sessions (native to technology and social media communities) essentialize research into a five-minute take accompanied by twenty PowerPoint slides, creating a dynamic, highly focused presentation. (For more information on the Ignite format, contact Jason McCool, jmccool at bu.edu.) Abstracts of no more than 250 words are due January 5th to John Forrestal, johndf at bu.edu.

 

Keynote Speaker: Jennifer Iverson from the University of Iowa

NETWORKED BODIES: Digital Performance Weekender

 

NETWORKED BODIES
Digital Performance Weekender
Friday 7 – Sunday 9 November 2014
Watermans
 
Programme of events
 
Networks are at the heart of how we live today. Networks generate transnational zones of action, bring together communities, circulate knowledge and information, expand spheres of influence, contaminate ideas, germinate exchanges, foster innovation, and facilitate distribution of power. However, networks are unfairly distributed and closely monitored. Geopolitical injustices and dominant political and economic forces mean that networks can foster segregation, facilitate hyper-centralized forms of citizen surveillance and control, fragment living space and experience. These developments of the network society generate social tensions, which invest the task of understanding networks in their many manifestations -including cultural ones- with social and political urgency.
 
Networks, despite many past promises of disembodiment and internationalism through the obsolescence of both bodies and geographical boundaries – promises now widely perceived themselves as obsolete – are still experienced by subjects that remain both embodied and geographically situated (Cohen, 2012: 11) As Cohen argues, not only are networks firmly connected to material bodies and physical geographies, but they also play “an increasingly significant role in constructing embodied experience” (ibid), by both empowering and configuring the “networked self” (ibid: 12).
 
In Networked Bodies at Watermans we want to explore networked performance practices with a view to considering how they transform live (embodied, disembodied and trans-bodied) performance practices. We are keen to consider the many, increasingly well documented, exciting possibilities these present to live performance, as well as their potential downsides. Speaking for the devil (so to speak), we ask: do these practices raise any ethical concerns through the use of surveillance and control, fragmentation of space and experience, alienation or even exploitation of their participants? Networked Bodies will aim to look beyond shiny appearances and into the -occasionally dirty- folds of the networks (and the bodies).
 
Curated by Maria Chatzichristodoulou (aka Maria X) and Irini Papadimitriou
 
Participating Artists: Invisible Flock, Norah Lorway, Jo Scott, Chisato Minamimura in collaboration with Nick Rothwell & body>data>space, Kate Sicchio & Nick Rothwell, Fabio Lattanzi Antinori & Louise Ashcroft, Suzon Fuks, Steve Dixon, Julian Maynard Smith (Station House Opera), Maria Oshodi (Extant), Prof. Susan Broadhurst, Daniel Ploeger, Ellen Harlizius-Kluck, Rachel Jacobs (Active Ingredient), Tim Murray-Brown & Jan Lee, Christina Papagiannouli, Evi Stamatiou, Helen Varley Jamieson, Miljana Perić & Vicki Smith, Annie Abrahams, Camille Baker, Joel Cahen, Garrett Lynch, Joseph Hyde with Phill Tew & body>data>space, Kasia Molga & Adrian Godwin, Ka Fai Choy, Jennifer Lyn MoroneT Inc, Alex May, Nina Kov in collaboration with COLLMOT Robotic Research Group directed by Pr Tamas Vicsek, Dept of Biological Physics of the Eotvos University of Budapest, Exploring Senses CIC, Stanza

Researching the body

A 3 minute intro to trans-disciplinary research into embodiment from MODE (I’m hoping to get to some of their fantastic training events soon):

MODE Blog

Authors: Carey Jewitt & Sara Price

The mode seminar on embodiment and digital technologies (03.04.14) drew an interesting interdisciplinary group together. The word cloud made from the three key words that each of the participants used to introduce themselves shows something of this mix.

As one of the participants commented, embodiment draws together people from across a wide range of disciplines – at this particular event from sociology, art, performance, psychology, media and communication studies, literacy and education studies, human computer interaction, design, and architecture.

We explored what is meant by embodiment (embodied cognition), drawing on some theoretical ideas around the body being the ‘hub of all meaning making’ (Merleau Ponty, 1945), highlighting cognition as enacted (through sensori-motor/ action); embedded (through beingness in the environment and social and cultural contexts); and extended (through notions of offloading cognition/ manipulation/ transformation; and finally the idea of an ‘amalgamated mind’ (Rowland, 2010), where…

View original post 240 more words

PhD Studentship: the human body as nexus for performing arts and medicine

The proposed project will investigate, through practice-based research, the reciprocal relationship between the life sciences/medicine and contemporary visual/performing arts as it is constructed, perceived, negotiated or performed at the nexus of physical and conceptual human bodies.

At the heart of the project will be innovative forms of interdisciplinary (possibly collaborative) research, where the body in its’ real or imagined state – from cell sample to living patient or cadaver – is the central focus. The project will negotiate the creative possibilities of the intersection between activities and persons in different fields. Practice-based research, which utilises the participatory, interactive approach theorised, as ‘relational aesthetics’ by Bourriaud may be most relevant here, though no particular media is prescribed.

Research proposals with collaborators/collaborating institutions in place are welcomed, or can be built as part of the project. Every effort will be made to facilitate relationships with appropriate Departments across the University and beyond, utilising the networks of the supervisory team.

The research will be situated within emergent Fine Art research group ‘The Cultural Negotiation of Science’ which includes staff working with experts in Fundamental and Biomedical Science, Genetics and Physical Geography, whose common concerns include the foregrounding of practice and performativity across the disciplines, challenging the instrumentalisation of art in cross-disciplinary collaboration, and exploring the perceived ethical ‘values’ guiding both art and science.

The wider contemporary visual art context includes the existing field of art/science collaboration, which the project should aim to extend/challenge.
Relevant also are cross-disciplinary networks in Arts & Health, the second wave of “Critical Medical Humanities”, the interdisciplinary fields of Death Studies and Collections – based research.

The researcher will benefit from a base amongst the Fine Art, Post Graduate community at BALTIC 39 (http://baltic39.com/) established through the partnership between Northumbria University and the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.

Enquiries regarding this studentship should be made to: christine.borland@northumbria.ac.uk

Applicants should hold a first or upper second class honours degree (in a relevant subject) from a British higher education institution, or equivalent. Students who are not UK/EU residents are eligible to apply, provided they hold the relevant academic qualifications, together with an IELTS score of at least 6.5.

To apply, contact Andrea Percival to request the appropriate application form, quoting the advert reference above, via email to ad.pgr@northumbria.ac.uk or by using the application link on this page.

Deadline for applications: 14 April 2014
Start Date: 7 October 2014

More info at findaphd.com.

CFP: Intersectionality and Technologies of the Musical Body

Many thanks to Dr Trevor Wiggins for passing this on.

Dear Colleagues,

As the deadline for SEM 2014 approaches, I am putting together a panel of paper presentations that deal with intersectionality studies in ethnomusicology with an emphasis on dance and musical movement and video that allows us to discuss issues of race, gender, sexuality and desire (among other things) in ethnographic research on and off-line.

Papers will include one by Ari Ben Mosha Gagné (Univ. of Colorado at Boulder) looking at twerking, booty-shaking and p-poppin among women as well as men in bounce music culture.  I will be presenting on research on black girls twerking on YouTube, research I introduced in my SEM 2013 presentation (thanks for all who attended). I am currently writing about my research on my blog http://kyraocity.wordpress.com.

The panel will also focus attention on the technologies of the musical body in the study of systems of oppression and/or social change relative to self-presentation and the generalized other from a sociological perspective. Presenters are strongly encouraged to use video or actual live dancing.

This is envisioned as a panel akin to the queering the pitch discourse that embraces intersectionalism in ethnomusicological studies. If you think your work fits, send it for consideration to kyraocity@gmail.com. Digital ethnomusicology studies are strongly encouraged.

Must hear from you by Jan 31 to prepare the proposals for submission.

Thank you,

Kyra Gaunt

Gli Spazi Della Musica 2/2

Open access musicology journal Gli Spazi Della Musica has a number of body-related articles in the “Variazioni” section of the current issue:

Florian Henri Besthorn: The widening, destruction and fusion of sounding bodies. The significance of the body in “experimental chamber music” works by Joerg Widmann

Ethan Allred: Disembodied Identity: Patriotism, Gender, and Homosexuality in Francis Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tiresias

Gianpaolo Chiriaco: La polvere e le ossa: voce, memoria, corpo e identita nella cultura musicale afroamericana

Carlo Genova: Giovani e musica dal vivo. Suoni, corpi e immagini nello spazio

I’ll be adding them to the Body | Music | Technology Zotero group later today. There are lots of other interesting references on there, too. Do consider joining!

[CFP] Sound Studies: Mapping the Field – Second International ESSA Conference

Sound Studies: Mapping the Field will be the title of the second international ESSA conference. It will take place at the University of Copenhagen, June 27-29, 2014. Among the themes are: Case studies that testify to the recent changes within sound studies, theoretical reflections on sound studies’ futures, methodological papers testing the inter- or trans-disciplinary approaches of sound studies, historical papers that may help understand and contextualize the current developments, papers addressing how the sound industries take part in the recent developments, sound design futures, and presentations of contemporary artworks that incorporate sounds.

Proposals for panels: February 1

Individual papers: March 15

Keynote speakers are Georgina Born (Oxford University, UK), Norie Neumark (La Trobe University, Australia), Carolyn Birdsall (Amsterdam University, Holland)

Download the call for papers.

[CFP] Fifth International Symposium on Music/Sonic Art: Practices and Theories

26-29 June, 2014
Hochschule für Musik, Karlsruhe –
Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Musikinformatik (IMWI)
Am Schloss Gottesaue 7, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany

Keynote speaker: Rolf Inge Godøy (University of Oslo)

We are pleased to announce the Fifth International Symposium on Music and Sonic Art: Practices and Theories (MuSA 2014), an interdisciplinary event to be held in Karlsruhe, Germany at the Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Musikinformatik (IMWI). MuSA 2014 is also supported by Middlesex University, London.

Proposals for sessions and individual papers for the Fifth International Symposium on Music and Sonic Art: Practices and Theories are invited from academics, independent researchers, practitioners and post-graduate students. Presentation formats include academic research papers (20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion); reports on practice-based/artistic research or educational programmes (20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion); and workshops and panel sessions (30 minutes + 15 minutes for discussion). The Symposium committee encourages presentations in which practice forms an integral part of the research. All proposals will be ‘blind’ peer-reviewed. The Symposium language will be English.

THEME AND TOPICS:

The principal aim of MuSA 2014 is to advance interdisciplinary investigations in – as well as between – music and sonic art. MuSA 2014 continues to promote this aim by probing the role of embodied approaches through this year’s theme:

exploring embodiment in music and sonic art.

We invite submissions on the following, and other related topics:

• Body movement and emergence of meaning;
• Embodied approaches to creativity;
• Kinematics and haptics as background for music and sonic art    research;
• Gesture and expression;
• Methods for embodied analysis;
• Phenomenology of the performing body;
• The body within socio-cultural contexts of music and sonic art;
• Pedagogical contexts for embodied approaches to music and sonic art;
• The body in interpersonal sound-based communication;
• Ecological, biological, neuroscientific and evolutionary approaches to embodiment;
• Historical roots of embodied approaches in theory and practice;
• Technology and embodiment;
• Critical discourses of embodiment in practice and research;
• Embodied aesthetics;
• Embodiment in collaborative research;

Within the thriving discipline of musical performance studies, there is a
general tendency to speak of ‘the performer’ as an abstract category
without taking into account the kind of musical instrument that mediates
the act of music making and music as a temporally emergent, sounding
phenomenon. In reality, different kinds of musical instruments involve
different expressive means (and at times different expressive/artistic
aims), engender different phenomenologies of performance making, and generate different kinds of performer identities. The nature of the
embodied interaction with different instruments in composition and
performance, and the expressive and communicative meanings that emerge as a result of such interaction constitute a largely unexplored research territory.

The purpose of this one-day event within MuSA 2014 is to re-think the
nature of the relationship between music making and the musical instrument.  Some of the topics that will be explored include:

• The acoustical, musical, cultural, symbolic, and ritualistic
qualities of musical instruments and the relationships between these
(theoretically) distinct kinds of qualities;
• The discourses that exist in relation to musical instruments in
different genres, styles and traditions;
• The gestural affordances and ergonomic principles of musical
instruments and the musical meanings that emerge as a result of these
affordances and principles;
• Performers, improvisers and their instruments: phenomenologies of
music making in the context of particular kinds of musical instruments;
• Composer and instruments: the material, acoustical and expressive
qualities of instruments and their relationship to musical languages
composers create;
• Relationships between creativity in performance, nature of musical
interpretation and musical instruments;
• The role of the musical instrument in the creation of musical
identities;

We invite proposals on any research area related to the nature and use of western acoustical instruments, traditional ethnic instruments and
digital/virtual instruments:

ABSTRACT FORMAT:

Please submit an abstract of approximately 250-300 words as an e-mail attachment to musa2014@btinternet.com

As contributions will be ‘blind’ peer-reviewed, please do not include
information that might facilitate identification from the abstract. In
addition, please include separately the name(s) of the author(s),
institutional affiliation (if any) and short biography (approximately 100
words). Deadline for the receipt of abstracts is Friday, 21 March 2014.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 15 April.

Please specify whether you wish your abstract to be considered for the
one-day ‘Re-thinking the musical instrument’ event.

REGISTRATION:

The Symposium fees are: €120 for delegates, €100 for presenters and €60 for students and others who qualify for concessions.

 

Listening to traffic with guts and antennae

Soundwalking Interactions

“Listening to traffic with guts and antennae” is a paper that I presented at the symposium Resonant Bodies: Landscapes of Acoustic Tension, held at the International Cultural Institute in Berlin, Germany in June 2013, and organized by Zeynep Bulut and Brandon LaBelle. It accompanies the piece Spectral Traffic, which can be found on the andrasound channel of youtube.

listeningtotrafficmccartney

“Listening to traffic with guts and antennae” est le titre d’une communication donnée dans le cadre du symposium “Resonant Bodies: Landscape of Acoustic Tension” à l’International Cultural Institute de Berlin en juin 2013. Ce symposium était organisé par Zeynep Bulut et Brandon LaBelle. Cette présentation est accompagnée par la pièce Spectral Traffic, qu’on peut retrouver sur ma châine youTube.

View original post

[Event] Stelarc: the human body is obsolete (seminar)

Seminar with Stelarc and Henk Oosterling (Erasmus University).

25 October 2013
14.00 – 17.00
Auditorium
Het Nieuwe Instituut
Museumpark, Rotterdam

 

“In a time of Circulating Flesh, Fractal Flesh and Phantom Flesh organs are extracted and exchanged, bodies and bits of bodies remotely generate recurring patterns of interactivity and haptic technologies generate potent physical presences of virtual flesh. Bodies are hacked, genes are mapped, prosthetics are attached and chimeras are engineered in labs. The trans-species, the trans-gendered and even the trans-human proliferate.” Stelarc

This seminar follows a presentation by Stelarc on the 24th October.

Visit V2_ for further information.