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NEW ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON TANGENTIAL POINTS BETWEEN NATURAL SCIENCES AND ARTS 
Helsinki, May 15-16, 2014

Special topic: Influence of A. Bogdanov's systemic thinking on film arts via the Proletkult-movement

We invite abstracts for paper presentations in the two-day international conference to be held at Aalto University, Helsinki, May 15-16, 2014.

This new annual conference will bring together international scholars from natural sciences and arts to discuss historical and contemporary tangenting points between distinct fields.  Each year a new specific topic will provide participants with a playground for creating, sharing, and cultivating a multiplicity of novel, even radical tangential points between natural sciences and arts.

The 1st meeting aims at linking the early Russian systemic thinking with the montage thinking that emerged within the film community in the first half of the 20th century. 

The young Sergei M. Eisenstein, among other artists, joined the Proletkult, a cross-disciplinary movement aiming to revolutionize culture, arts, and sciences. The medical doctor Alexander Bogdanov was the ideological father of this movement. Bogdanov held regular lectures, which embedded his tektological ideas of organization and emergent behavior as universal mechanisms of nature. Once V.I. Lenin’s closest collaborator, Bogdanov soon became his worst rival, and his systemic ideas were doomed to vanish from the Soviet history until their re-discovery in the 1980s. 

The tangenting points between the early systemic thinking and film arts constitute the general topic of this meeting. Among the specific issues is, for example, to what extent Eisenstein theoretical work on montage systems was influenced by the systemic thinking of Alexander Bogdanov. To reach for present day, one may even ask, to what extent are these early systemic ideas recycled in contemporary media art theories?

We encourage expert and student submissions that link systemic thinking with film arts in general, or with Bogdanov, Eisenstein, and the Proletkult-movement in particular. A joint special topic publication based on proposed papers will also be considered.

ABSTRACT:
Please use the online form to submit your abstract of no more than 300 words and a short bio to the conference convener Pia Tikka by 1 March. 
ORGANIZER:
Aalto University, Department of Film, Television and Scenography (www.aalto.fi) in collaboration with the Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki (http://www.helsinki.fi/aleksanteri/english/) 
The members of organising committee are Pia Tikka [log in to unmask], Vesa Oittinen [log in to unmask] and Giulia Rispoli [log in to unmask]

LOCATION: Aalto University, Media Center LUME, Sampo Hall, Hämeentie 135 C, 00560 HELSINKI, Finland

More information and online abstract submission at  
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1im9cSM_Sgq_1Y-ZmkmuaWnEdiz10UXvQNw46wQr6n1o/viewform

The Aalto University strives to change the world through top-quality interdisciplinary research, pioneering education, surpassing traditional boundaries, and renewal by educating responsible, broadminded experts with a comprehensive understanding of complex subjects to act as society's visionaries.

Contact organising committee for inquiries.