[Dancecult-l] SCMS 2008 Philadelphia: call for papers for a panel on "designing musical media."

[James Tobias]

Dear friends and colleagues:

Below I've pasted in a bulletin board announcement for the March 2008  
Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Philadelphia,  
where the "theme" is design and media.

I'm filling out a panel proposal on "designing musical media," which  
I'm hoping will be a productive opportunity to revisit notions of  
musicality in the context of media transitions, the analytics of  
corporeality, sense, or sensation, and contemporary problems in  
biopolitical analysis.  I'll leave a proper bibliographic treatment  
aside, in the interest of soliciting a wide variety of treatments of  
"musicality" on (or as) the audiovisual screen or interface.

The usual "motley crüe" -- so to write -- of critical approaches are  
welcome: historical-empirical; critico-theoretical; cultural; ethico- 
aesthetic; political-philosophical; popular cultural; popular music  
cultures; gender, sexuality; race, ethnicity; class; globalization;  
deconstructive; post-Deleuzian; "new (old) media" or media  
transitions; historical-speculative; and also, significantly in this  
case, design critique; etc.

The common denominator will be that proposals are centered around the  
problematic of musicality, media reception, and "the screen" broadly  
understood.  And I'm hoping for challenging approaches rather than  
conventional ones.

My apologies for cross-posting; and feel free to pass on.

I'd need abstracts/proposals (250 - 1000 words, short bibliography)  
by August 10.  Note that you'd have to be a member of SCMS by January  
2008 in order to participate.

And my email reply info is below.

Warm regards,

James Tobias, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Cinema and Digital Media Studies
English Department/Department of Media and Cultural Studies
University of California, Riverside
james.tobias at ucr.edu




Subject: SCMS Bulletin Board Post


Type of Posting: Panel

Proposed Panel/Workshop Subject: Designing Musical Media: From  
Biomechanical to Bioinformatic Screens

Organizer Name(s):

James Tobias

E-Mail Address: james.tobias at ucr.edu

Summary: What does it mean to put music on the screen?
 From early cinema to contemporary digital media, we observe repeated  
efforts at designing the projected image as a musical display. As  
varied as they have been challenging, these efforts propose the  
musical screen as a device for regulating viewer mood, as visual  
music animation, as avant-garde experiment or conceptual  
intervention, as commercial spectacle, as critical engagement, as  
"immersion," as parody, as television theme-song, as advertisement,  
as promotional music clip (in film or video), as musical game, as  
playback device, or aesthetic-scientific prototype.
While given short shrift in critiques of narrative or of the avant- 
garde, considered as symptomatic of spectacular culture in commercial  
production, or written off as unnecessarily duplicating the  
soundtrack or attempting to impose attributes of the auditory on the  
visual, the design of musical media taken as a problematic rather  
than as a margin of artistic or commercial production actually  
exhibit three crucial characteristics which allow a re-configuration  
of screen studies within contemporary transmedia logics. First,  
divorcing the "musical" from the "auditory," musical media designs  
question the relationships of perception or cultural context to  
technological exhibition; these attempts are often affective and  
ethical, as much as technological, interventions in media practices.  
Second, designs for musical media point to the complexity of any  
"single" medium, so even a "visual" medium becomes multi- or  
transmedial, with broad implications for contemporary "convergent"  
digital media. Third, across media, musical design as problematic  
emphasizes the relations of synchronization necessarily determining  
audio, visual, or haptic meaning. In this sense, musical media offer  
a rich yet specific account of media situations.
This panel seeks presentations exploring the design of musical media,  
whether in the context of the "biomechanics" of early cinema, or the  
"bioinformatics" of contemporary digital transmedia. Papers might  
explore late 19th and early 20th century devices for the projection  
of musical images, visual music animation, narrativized musical  
presentation in commercial film or TV, artist video, musical video  
games, or MP3 interfaces. How does the media object attempt "musical"  
presentation of the visual screen or interface? The goal is to reveal  
historical and contemporary problematics of transmedia exhibition and  
situational use of synchronized media.

Send individual topics & summaries to organizer(s) by: E-Mail



                  Bulletin Board Policies - Please Read

1. All chairs/organizers must notify individuals whether bulletin  
board submissions have been accepted or rejected by August 15, 2007.

2. All individuals must be registered users of the website before the  
proposal process can begin.  If you are unsure you have registered or  
if you have forgotten your username and password, please contact the  
SCMS office at office at cmstudies.org.  To avoid duplicate entries and  
data errors, please do not re-register.

3. Individuals whose submissions are accepted must provide the  
required information for completion of the proposal form to the chair/ 
organizer prior to September 1, 2007.

4. Chairs/organizers of panels or workshops are responsible for  
submitting the entire panel or workshop form by September 1, 2007.

5. SCMS membership is a requirement to participant in the  
conference.  Chairs/organizers are responsible for notifying panel/ 
workshop participants (if accepted) that they must be or need to  
become a member of SCMS, register for the conference and pay the  
registration fee by: January 4, 2008.

6. To request a conference registration fee waiver and/or membership  
waiver for any panel or workshop participants, a waiver application  
must be completed at the following link:

  http://www.cmstudies.org/index.php? 
option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=93

and e-mailed to the SCMS office by September 1, 2007.   (Note:   
Waiver requests may be granted in exceptional circumstances for  
artists, filmmakers, or renowned scholars from other disciplines  
whose contributions would illuminate the panel or workshop topic.  
Open call participants do not qualify for these waivers).









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