UPDATE: Performing the Matrix: Mediating Cultural Performances (Germany) (6/25/05; 7/30/05-8/4/05)

UPDATE: !!! extended deadline for submission of abstracts: 25 June 2005
!!!

Call for Papers for the Conference

PERFORMING THE MATRIX - MEDIATING CULTURAL PERFORMANCES

30 July - 4 August 2005, University of Mainz, Germany

While matrix is a well established concept within different scholarly
fields, it has recently become a popular catchword through the
homonymous Wachowski brothers' film. As both a traditional concept and a
popular phenomenon, "matrix" can take on a new value when reconsidered
in the light of performance studies. Contemporary discussions on
cultural performances necessarily reflect on the medial preconditions of
these performative activities themselves. A behind-the-scenes look at
theatre, ritual, sports, events will reveal a productive mediating
structure metaphorically described as "matrix". The conference,
organized by the International Postgraduate Programme "Performance and
Media Studies", will be structured in three different sections, for
which papers are invited:

A Contemporary Approaches to the Theories of Performativity and
Media

Taking as a starting point the recent discussion of mediatization and
representation in the field of performance theory (Philip Auslander,
Peggy Phelan), this conference group sets out to investigate the
performative dimensions of the new media. Participants in the meetings
of this group are invited to give papers focusing either on theoretical
problems or on more practically-oriented case studies, addressing such
issues as the tension between text, score, structure and its
performance, liveness and mediality, fictionality and reality. How can
performance both as cultural performance and as theoretical concept be
related to the intertwined media landscape? How can we understand
effects of presence and resistance within a system of reproducibility
and mediatization?

B Mediated Narrative - Telling (hi)stories

Media perform (hi)stories of the matrix. The logic of these narratives
calls for a re-reading of methodological approaches. Accordingly,
analysis of contemporary and historical narration must invest in a
double perspective: Investigating the different narrative structures
(genre, authorial perspective, hybridity, citational logic of sujets) on
the surface while also observing how narratives are shaped by the
performance of the media-matrix. Given this, how can we come to terms
with the analysis of visual media forms? Which tools of analysis are
available? How can they be applied effectively? There is not one
predominant form of representation within the amalgamate of image, text
and sound. How do narrative conventions and new forms of narration
influence present day communicative processes? How do the narrative
bodies of historical performances inscribe themselves into the
performance of cultural memory and archives of particular theatre and
media forms? In one panel we will approach contemporary media forms from
the angle of expanded narratology. In a second panel we will deal with
images and texts as resources for historiographic writing and
performance iconography.

C Politics of Performance - Performance of Politics

This panel seeks to examine the interrelation of performance and
politics within a postcolonial context. What are the social and
political achievements of postcolonial performance today? In an age
where the performative trope pervades public spaces, can subversive
action still be theatrically reclaimed? On the other hand, can
performances truly mark forms of public intervention and socio-political
action? The panel will present papers which examine how the spheres of
political and theatrical action increasingly merge into a liminal space
and suggest ways to fruitfully understand their dialectics. The focus
will be either on analysing the performativity of political events or on
the relationship between performance, postcolonial theory and identity
politics related to case studies in the field of theatre/dance.

For further information please go to: www.performedia.uni-mainz.de

Johannes Gutenberg-Universit=E4t Mainz
IPP Performance and Media Studies
Birgit Walkenhorst, M.A. (Programm-Koordination)

Welder Weg 18
55099 Mainz
Tel.:+49/6131/3925507
<mailto:walkenho_at_uni-mainz.de> walkenho_at_uni-mainz.de
<mailto:walkenho_at_uni-mainz.de>
www.performedia.uni-mainz.de <http://www.performedia.uni-mainz.de/>

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Received on Sun May 08 2005 - 08:40:33 EDT