Call: Society for Cinema and Media Studies seeks papers on the subject of "design and media"

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 cr?e" -- 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@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@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@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).