[csaa-forum] Call for Papers: Fallout. Performance, Politics and War

Wed Sep 6 12:44:42 CST 2006

Call for Papers: Fallout. Performance, Politics and War 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

For full-day symposium of politics and performance to be held on: 22
November 2006 (from 10.00am-5.00pm)

Location is Room 327 Webster Building, the University of NSW Kensington
Campus, Sydney. 

For more information: http://fallout-symposium.blogspot.com/
<http://fallout-symposium.blogspot.com/> 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first nuclear test at
Maralinga in South Australia. To acknowledge this important occasion in
Australia's history the premiere season of Maralinga is being launched.
This is a 'verbatim' theatre production which is part of a longer-term
international collaboration between theatre workers and nuclear veterans
in both Australia and Britain.

Such events remind us of the important nexus between performance,
politics, war and fallout. This symposium aims to discuss a number of
these crucial issues.

Fallout

This symposium aims to interrogate the fallout of war through an
analysis of aesthetic practices developed in response to conflict. In a
global context of renewed political violence and the rise of neo
conservative politics, artists in Australia and elsewhere have been
forced to refocus their energies to consider the impacts and ethics of
art made in an international context of war. 

The discussion in the symposium is intended to produce an analysis of a
diverse range of performance works in which the response to political
events is directly broached or even structurally implicated in the work
itself. We ask whether this is efficacious or what if any ethical
functions can performance play in the contemporary political moment?

War

The announcement of the 'End of History' has not produced an end to
conflict. Instead it has unleashed an intensification of conflicts which
are global in scope however local in origin: civilization wars, culture
wars, wars on terror and drugs, perhaps a re-emergent cold war? How can
aesthetic activity offer a useful perspective on these dynamics of state
power and the production of a 'mass mediated machining synonymous with
distress and despair'? (Guattari) How have art works historically
responded to war and state violence and with what effects?

Politics

Does the discussion of political artworks as forms of political protest
miss a vital aspect of their role and significance as aesthetic forms?
How pertinent or relevant is the category 'political performance' in the
current social and political climate? How (successfully) is performance
currently acting as an agent for social critique and change? What forms
might a political art of the future adopt?

Performance

Case studies include recent political performance in Asia and Australia
by artists such as Ong Keng Sen's TheatreWorks in Singapore, Mike Parr,
NYID and in particular The Maralinga Project. September 2006 is the 50th
anniversary of the first test of British atomic bombs on Australian soil
at Maralinga. The project tracks the ongoing environmental and cultural
fallout from that event and allows those involved especially the diggers
and the kooris themselves a chance to speak about what the experience
meant to them.

Please note that a selection of papers will be chosen to be published in
Performance Paradigm (http://www.performanceparadigm.net
<http://www.performanceparadigm.net/> ) - a journal of performance and
contemporary culture.

Abstracts of 300 words should be sent to j.arvanitakis at uws.edu.au
<mailto:j.arvanitakis at uws.edu.au>  by Monday, 9 October 2006. These will
be subject to a refereeing process. We also invite proposals for panels
of three papers organized around a particular theme. Papers delivered at
the conference should be 20 minutes in length.

For more information, please contact Dr James Arvanitakis on
j.arvanitakis at uws.edu.au <mailto:j.arvanitakis at uws.edu.au>  or
(http://fallout-symposium.blogspot.com/
<http://fallout-symposium.blogspot.com/> )

Regards

James Arvanitakis, PhD
Associate Lecturer, Humanities and Languages
University of Western Sydney
Rm UG05, Building U
Kingswood Campus
Ph: 02 - 47360391
Mob: 0438-454-127

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