UPDATE: Optika 2: A Symposium on Visual Narration (Puerto Rico) (9/25/06; 2/7/07-2/9/07)

The first Optika symposium, which took place in 2005, brought
together people from a variety of artistic, intellectual, and
cultural backgrounds and resulted in a wonderfully stimulating 2 day
conversation about the possibilities of visual narration. It also
resulted in a book on the subject soon to be published by the
University of Puerto Rico Press. When the symposium ended, everyone
was asking when Optika 2 would take place. So we are happy to
announce the second edition of Optika, and invite you to submit your
proposals. The following CFP includes new submission deadlines and
conference dates:

Optika 2: A Symposium on Visual Narration
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday February 7th, 8th and 9th, 2007
Organizers: Mary Leonard, Laura Bravo

Optika 2 is a three-day symposium which will explore the theory and
practice of visual narrative. Academics, independent scholars,
students, and artists are invited to participate. Both academic and
creative work are welcome and may be submitted in either English or
Spanish. The organizers are interested in a variety of critical and
theoretical perspectives which contribute to our understanding of the
many ways we might conceive of visual narration. We are also
interested in formal diversity. Thus papers or creative work may
engage with the visual in defined genres, or in less-studied hybrid
or emerging forms. Forms and genres include film, television, music
videos, theater, opera, performance art, installations, painting,
sculpture, photography, commercials, billboards, comics, cartoons,
graphic novels, graffiti, digital and internet forms. Selected work
will be published in the symposium proceedings.

Academic submissions are by abstract and should be accompanied by a
biography of not more than 3 sentences. Abstracts should be no longer
than 300 words long. Papers should be no more than twenty minutes long.

Creative work is by proposal (300 word maximum), and should be
accompanied by a biography of the artist no longer than 3 sentences
and a visual representation of the proposed work. Presentations or
projections may last from 1 to 10 minutes. In the case of
photographs, paintings, sculpture, and other static forms, the artist
should submit a narrative piece composed of up to 10 individual
elements (e.g., a narrative composed of 10 photographs). Submissions
which include more than ten elements may be accepted if the artist
convincingly justifies the need for the inclusion of all the elements
proposed.

The organizers seek to include a wide variety of artistic forms and
approaches to visual narration and will give preference to
submissions which will provoke the spectator to reflect upon,
question or rethink the ways in which stories can be visually
constructed.

Deadline for submissions: Monday, September 25, 2006

Send submissions for papers/presentations to:

Mary Leonard
English Department
323 Chardon Building
University of Puerto Rico
Mayaguez Campus
Mayaguez, Puerto Rico 00681
mleonard_at_choicecable.net
mleonard_at_uprm.edu

Send submissions for the gallery exhibition to:

Laura Bravo
laura_bravolopez_at_yahoo.com
  
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Received on Mon Sep 04 2006 - 20:37:24 EDT