>>>>>>> A FRIENDLY REMINDER: if you click REPLY to this email, you will be sending an email to over 1400 subscribers. Please do so only if you wish to respond to everyone.
The SCUDD Conference this year will be hosted by the University of Lincoln - 26-27 March
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[

Dear all,

This is a reminder for (re)Performing the Posthuman - a conference on
performance arts and posthumanism, taking place at the University of
Sussex, 21-22 May 2010.
We are now pleased to announce all three keynote speakers and an exciting
hi-tech conference venue. The deadline for proposals is February 15th 2010.
In addition to proposals for papers and presentations, we would like to
invite people to propose performances (in first and/or second life),
compositions, video work, etc.
Please see the call for papers below for more information:


=================================================
(re)Performing the Posthuman
a conference on performance arts and posthumanism
=================================================

Centre for Research in Opera and Music Theatre (CROMT)
InQbate: The Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Creativity
(CETL)
University of Sussex, Brighton, 21-22 May 2010

==Keynote speakers==
Rosemary E. Klich (University of Kent, Canterbury)
Jennifer Parker-Starbuck (Roehampton University, London)
Stelarc (Brunel University, West London / University of Western Sydney) 

By the 1980s, the continuing decrease in size and production costs had made
digital technology available for everyday domestic use in large parts of
the Western world.  Interaction with electronic technological devices also
became widespread in theatre and performance art. In response to this
development, cultural and critical theorists, in search of adequate
theories to account for the formation of subjectivity in a technologized
culture, became increasingly interested in models of subjectivity that call
into question the humanist concept of the body as a biological entity.
These theories influenced not only critical analysis of performance arts,
but also artists’ own conceptualizations of their work.

Now, more than a decade has passed since the heyday of computer-based
interactivity in performance arts, the introduction of new dramaturgical
and theatrical approaches to character-actor-audience relationships
questioning the subject and subjectivity, and the publication of N.
Katherine Hayles key work How we became Posthuman (1999). Since this time,
many artists have adopted a more critical stance towards the integration
and influence of digital technologies in their work. Also, a number of
critiques of posthumanism have emerged, some drawing attention to
inconsistencies between the theory’s wider cultural implications and
socio-political realities, others insisting on the possibility of a
biological definition of humanness. 

It is therefore now an apposite moment to revisit the idea of the
posthuman, and posthumanist approaches to performance art and theatre. The
aim of (re)Performing the Posthuman is to create an opportunity to do
precisely this and to discuss in what form (if any) non-humanist concepts
of the body and subjectivity may still be useful as a conceptual and
analytical framework in performance arts.

==Conference Venue==
The performances and presentations of (re)Performing the Posthuman will
take place in InQbate on the University of Sussex campus. InQbate is a
multi-functional space of flexible dimensions, equipped with video
projectors, high definition video screens, multi-loudspeaker sound system,
sound domes and advanced lighting system. The Centre of Excellence in
Teaching and Learning in Creativity (CETL) will develop a Second Life
environment for the conference.

==Call for Papers==
Proposals for papers, presentations and performances concerning (but not
limited to) the following topics are invited:
 
- performance, technology and animality
- writing, scenography and dramaturgy by and for (post)humans
- posthumanism and musical performance
- the embodied performer and sound/video technologies
- mediated performance and the "liveness" debate
- anti-humanism and posthumanism in modernist and postmodernist performance
practices
- posthumanism and aesthetics

Please send a 300 word abstract or performance proposal and an outline of
technical requirements to the conference organizers Seda Ilter
([log in to unmask]) and Daniël Ploeger ([log in to unmask]) by
February 15th 2010.

______________
To join, leave or suspend list postings, visit www.scudd.org.uk/list
______________