Please submit any proposals by December 20th, 2006 to
sensorium2007_at_gmail.com
 
Recharging the Sensorium: CSU Presents a Writing/Multimedia Day of the Arts
Open to Students and Faculty
Friday, April 27th, 2007
On the campus of Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT 06050
 
INTRODUCTION
 
CSU Systems Office in conjunction with the Connecticut Review, the Helix and
Drunkenboat.com, online journal of the arts, present a day dedicated to the
conjunction of text with other media. Despite the popular image of the
solitary writer in a garret, writing is not an isolated art or stand-alone
skill, especially these days. Writers¹ expressions of the written word
regularly combine with film, music, photographs, paintings, graphic
illustrations and other arts, creating new, collaborative forms of
composition. Newspaper reporters' stories are brought to readers combined
with photos from the field. Poets write lines to match music or find their
lines set to music. Ekphrastic poetry, that is the verbal representation of
visual representation, has grown exceedingly more popular. More and more,
the web brings together multimedia elements with streaming audio and video,
fine art photographs and paintings‹and an entire generation relies on the
web for their information, entertainment and encounters with the arts. Here
words are almost always embedded in a multimedia environment. The
combination of words and multimedia is hardly new. Since the advent of
recorded history, writing has come in a multimedia form. From the
"performances" of scops, gleeman and jongleurs to illuminated manuscripts,
language has often conjoined with the other arts.
 
We invite students and faculty from the four CSU campuses and local high
schools to think imaginatively about writing in terms of the new, extensive
multimedia reality. Recharging the Sensorium, the inaugural Writing and
Multimedia Day of the Arts will be devoted to examining the multiple
connections between text and other media. It will address historical
contexts and investigate the use of new technologies. This conference could
potentially include collaborations across various disciplines such as (but
not confined to) poetry, prose, visual culture, art history, musicology,
photography, graphic novels, comparative literature, media archeology,
dramaturgy, film, dance, performance, and the natural and behavioral
sciences.
 
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
 
The conference program will include competitively selected, collaborative
projects, as well as a small number of invited panelists and speakers. The
conference will culminate in a keynote event that will feature the winners
of Drunken Boat¹s inaugural PanLiterary Awards and contributors to the most
recent issue of the Connecticut Review.
 
The conference will also include panels on a variety of subjects, including
editing print and online journals, multimedia processes, text and image, and
the rapidly changing media environment. Accepted presenters will also have
the chance to debut their work in a variety of forums‹in gallery space, on
stage, in interactive displays and in forums. We will encourage all
participants to engage in open-ended discussions that delve into relevant
issues and questions. Potential projects include slide shows, dramatic
performances, film (run in a loop or featured discretely), public navigation
of unusual websites, the public showing of illustrated children's books, the
production of graphic novels, musical scores, or operas, choreographed sound
or performance pieces, dramatized readings, intersections of visual imagery
and textuality, investigations into architecture and space as it relates to
other media as well as any other projects that demonstrate the
cross-pollination of the arts.
 
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
 
Recharging the Sensorium welcomes proposals that use at least two different
media in its conception and execution. Collaborative projects are highly
encouraged, but we will also accept solo proposals that propose to use at
least two forms of expression (e.g. text and image). We are especially keen
on proposals that explore the territory of interdisciplinary artworks.
Please note that there is a limited funding available to help students and
faculty members complete their proposed projects.
 
Submissions should include the following information:
 
1) Name and contact information of the parties involved in the project,
including their affiliation with a CSU school or high school (e.g. student
or faculty)
 
2) Brief Project Description: Spend no more than a page describing what it
is you intend to do, how it involves the use of more than one media, and
what the desired outcome of your project will be. Please feel free to
include examples to buttress your ideas. You could mention similar kinds of
projects, or models that you are basing your own project on.
 
3) Specifications: Please indicate what space and equipment you¹ll need
for the composition, production and display of the work in question. If it
is an artwork, indicate the expected dimensions and how you would see it
situated. If it is a collaborative theatrical or musical piece, or a film,
indicate the expected duration and how you would like the piece screened
and/or choreographed. If it is a web-based artwork, please indicate what
software you will be using to create the piece and how you would like the
work viewed. If it involves props or any other equipment (projector,
streaming video server, television, DVD player, frames, etc.), please also
indicate that information.
 
4) Budget: To the best of your ability, please delineate how much you
expect this project to cost and what you would spend any funding on. Please
be aware that we only have a limited amount of funding at our disposal so
requests may only be partially funded, depending on the feasibility and
scope of the project. No budgets over $500 will be considered. Be as
specific as you can.
 
5) Letter of Recommendation: If you are applying for funding, please also
include a letter of recommendation from a professor or other established
figure who can vouch for your creative/technical abilities and follow
through.
 
Email your proposal as a Word or .rtf document to: sensorium2007_at_gmail.com
 
Feel free to include any urls, related graphic or sound files, or other
supplementary materials that might help us make our final determination.
 
The DEADLINE for submissions will be Wednesday, December 20th, 2006
 
INFORMATION about the submission process and general information will be
found online shortly and a website address will be passed on to those
individuals with projects accepted.
 
Conference Organizers: JP Briggs (WCSU) briggsjp_at_wcsu.edu, Ravi Shankar
(CCSU) shankarr_at_ccsu.edu, David Cappella (CCSU) cappellad_at_ccsu.edu, and Andy
Thibault (CT-IMPAC) Tntcomm82_at_cs.com
 

***************
Ravi Shankar
Poet-in-Residence
Assistant Professor
CCSU - English Dept.
860-832-2766
shankarr_at_ccsu.edu

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Received on Tue Nov 28 2006 - 17:56:06 EST