Call for papers for the International Symposium “Formats, Devices and Mechanisms for Interaction (in the Relational Scene)”

The journal   Estudis Escènics   of the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona, in collaboration with the Center for Human and Social Sciences of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and the Universitat de Santiado de Compostela (Department of Theory of Literature and Comparaded Literature) organizes the International Symposium “Formats, Devices and Mechanisms for Interaction (in the Relational Scene)”, to be held at the Institut de Teatre in Barcelona on 13, 14 and 15 October 2020 (provisional dates). The symposium will analyse the scope of an expanded concept of interaction (and of an expanded idea of relational aesthetics) in different fields of the current performing-performative praxis. The symposium is accepting papers in any of its fields. The symposium will analyse the scope of an expanded concept of interaction (and of an expanded idea of relational aesthetics) in different fields of the current performing-performative praxis.  The symposium is accepting papers related to any of its fields. 

• Those interested in presenting their work must first submit an abstract of their paper in Catalan, Spanish or English. Once selected, the papers must be publicly presented in Catalan or Spanish.

• The abstracts, with a maximum of one page, must be sent before 20 April to the following address: info.estudisescenics@institutdelteatre.cat

• If the number of abstracts accepted by the Scientific Committee exceeds the number of papers established by the organisation, the Committee will make a selection.

• After the Symposium, the papers accepted must be submitted within a period of two months for possible publication in Estudis Escènics. The rules for submission of originals are available on the following link.

 The symposium will analyse the scope of an expanded concept of interaction (and of an expanded idea of relational aesthetics) in different fields of the current performing-performative praxis. Thematic fields of the symposium:  1) Formats

All contributions reflecting on the frameworks that, in recent decades, have enabled the participatory hypotheses and utopias to be re-directed to Bourriaud’s notion of relational aesthetics (or other linked notions) will be submitted to this section: community theatre, festive-ritualistic revival, socio-inclusive experiments, new choreutic or choreopolitical paradigms, immersive theatre and, of course, participatory theatre.

2) Devices

This section will tackle the protocols of the different relational poetics, bearing in mind the procedures of those dramaturgies ‒ and postdramatic sistematúrgies ‒ that are expressed in the replacement of traditional playwriting (and its compact or continuous syntagm) with a programming of the becoming (more or less supported by the new technologies or the new connectivity frameworks).

The core of this programming is invariably the paradigmatic whole of discontinuous elements (and also the principles that govern the interaction between these elements). The reason why this ‒ theatrical, choreographic, computing, telematic ‒ device almost obviously harmonises with the protocols of the different relational poetics is that the device is, in itself, a field of correlations and intrications, a system open to the one thousand flexions of relativity.

This section would therefore include all the contributions aimed at shedding light on specific formal strategies in interaction devices, ranging from the dramaturgical strategies of pure participatory productions to the poetic uses of the Web’s potential for connection, immersive resources of interactive installations, choreographic objects, and the programmed experiences of self-performativity or social self-fiction (from the shopping centre to the theme park).

3) Mechanisms

This section will highlight the powerful expansions and inflations of relational poetics in the field of programming and cultural production in a broad sense: on the one hand, the highly consensual universe of current networking, the platforms of support for creation, and cooperation programmes; and, on the other, the rise of the new formats of poetic collectivisation and the new lexical fetishes (re-enactment, transmission, spillover, anti-pedagogy, etc.). All would be critically analysed as possible reflections on the rhetorical deterioration of a poetically genuine hypothesis. Also as signs of laundering of mottos and utopias ‒ at the service of programming and cultural mediation ‒ whose political feasibility is irremediably cancelled.