Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 15:24:35 +0800
Subject: SPOON-ANN: call for papers


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A project of The Art Association of Australia & New Zealand (NSW Chapter)
with support from The College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales,
Newcastle University, The University of Technology Sydney,
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Power Institute of Art and Visual
Culture University of Sydney

CONDUCTING BODIES:
Affect, Sensation & Memory

a juried conference exploring new thinking on affect, sensation
and bodily memory in relation to art and art history

The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
20th to 22nd July, 2001



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Invited speakers include


Leo Bersani
Emeritus Professor, University of California Berkeley
books include "The Freudian body: psychoanalysis and art", "The culture
of redemption", and in collaboration with Ulysse Dutoit,
"Arts of impoverishment: Beckett, Rothko, Resnais", and "Caravaggio's
secrets"

Ernst Van Alphen
Professor, University of Leiden
books include "Caught By History: Holocaust Effects in Contemporary Art,
Literature and Theory" and "Francis Bacon and the Loss of Self"

Georges Didi-Huberman
Ecole des Hautes Etudes (Sciences Sociales) Paris
books include "'Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration'"

Doris Salcedo
artist, Colombia

Mieke Bal
Professor of Theory of Literature, University of Amsterdam
books include "The mottled screen: reading Proust visually",
"Narratology :
introduction to the theory of narrative",
and "Quoting Caravaggio: contemporary art, preposterous history"

Geoff Batchen
Associate Professor, Art History & Theory, University of New Mexico
books include "Burning With Desire: The Conception of Photography"


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Call for Papers

This conference is organised into six sessions over two days. Each
session is devised and constructed by a chair and will consist of either
3 x 20 minute papers or 2 x 30 minute papers with a respondent or
summation by the chair. Keynote speakers will be invited outside this
format. This international call for papers will be assessed by members
of a steering committee or invited experts as appropriate. Sessions are:

THEORIES OF AFFECT
Chaired by Suzannah Biernoff, Chelsea College of Art and Design/Susan
Best, University of Technology Sydney Susan.Best-AT-uts.edu.au
This session will address the ways in which theories of affect (for
example, those of philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze or psychologists
such as Silvan Tomkins) have been taken up within the discipline of art
history and theory. Art historical applications of such theories include
work on medieval understandings of the affective image and on the
operations of digital media.

GLOBAL POLITICS AND BODILY MEMORY
Chaired by Jill Bennett, School of Art History and Theory, The
University of New South Wales j.bennett-AT-unsw.edu.au
This session will consider artists' approaches to the subject of 'bodily
memory' (various forms of sensory and emotional memory; also
post-traumatic memory) against the backdrop of global politics and world
events. How, for example, is bodily memory conveyed in relation to
events such as the Holocaust, the Stolen Generations or war - or in
relation to phenomena such as racism? What do aesthetic languages of
bodily memory add to our understanding of these events and experiences?

MOVING ART
Chaired by Susan Best, University of Technology Sydney
Susan.Best-AT-uts.edu.au
In his recent catalogue essay for Force Fields: Phases of the Kinetic,
Guy Brett urges us to reconsider kinetic art and the neglected 'language
of move ment' and to reevaluate their importance in the history of
twentieth-century art. Kinetic art, usually reduced to a brief art
historical footnote, is given much more expansive definition in this
exhibition. Repositioning this strand of twentieth-century art practice
may also help us to address more contemporary concerns about the nature
of aesthetic engagement, and theentailment of affect, sensation,
proprioception, and embodiment in thatengagement. Papers for this
session should address such questions and/or the 'language of movement'
and its legacy in contemporary art practice.

WITHOUT AFFECT: MINIMALISM, POP AND AFTER
Chaired by Keith Broadfoot, Department of Art History and Theory, The
University of Sydney
Keith.Broadfoot-AT-arthist.usyd.edu.au
The moment of Pop and Minimalism is often understood to be a moment of
"affectlessness" in art. How might we re-examine this understanding
today? Also, how might we re-examine the legacy of Pop and Minimalism in
relation to the question of the work of art and its affect?

MEMORY AND THE EPIGRAM
Chaired by Charles Green, School of Art History and Theory, The
University of New South Wales c.green-AT-unsw.edu.au
This session looks at theories of memory that detach its contents from
simple allegorical organization and registration: in other words, the
session looks at models and formulae for discursive memory organization
such as Walter Benjamin's epigrammatic late projects, Robert Smithson's
entropic essays, and Aby Warburg's pathos formula. The potential
dimensions of Warburg's iconological reformulation of affective cultural
memory andBenjamin's Arcades project, for example, are only now becoming
clear. But what do they, or other similar, often obscure projects,
reveal about affect and culture?

OBJECTS THAT TRIGGER MEMORY RETRIEVAL
Chaired by Anthony Bond, Art Gallery of New South Wales
tonyb-AT-ag.nsw.gov.au
This session will consider the work of artists who make use of objects
and materials that trigger powerful affective responses and specific
cultural memories as for example Doris Salcedo's use of the shoes of the
victims of.political violence in Colombia. There will also be discussion
of cross over between artistic practice and medicine where objects are
used to stimulate brain function in Alzheimer's patients, long term work
on cultural memory through the work of the mass observation archive with
particular reference to photographic evidence and specific case studies
of objects as mnemonic devices in art making.


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Deadlines

Expressions of interest/short abstract: January 31, 2001
Final papers submitted: March 31, 2001


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Submissions to be sent to:
Anthony Bond, Committee Chair
Conducting Bodies Conference
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery Road, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia

or by email to session chairs