CfP - panel 'Immersion. Remediation. Revolution. Digital (&) Performance - 17th congress of the German Semiotic Association

To achieve its goals, the German Semiotic Association organizes conferences, colloquia,workshops, courses, lecture series on core areas of its research fields. Moreover, every three years the association organizes an international congress. Within the 17th international congress „Signs.Cultures.Digitality“ (Landau, 24.–28. September 2024), the section Theatre, Dance & Circus has organized a panel on the topic “Immersion. Remediation. Revolution – Digital (&) Performance” and invites for paper proposals.

Apps, digital videos, digital projections, animated sets and characters, virtual reality, augmented reality, digital robotics, online writing and real-time audience feedback, interactive content creation, motion capturing, motion-triggering, web and videoconferencing, streaming, Web3 based funding programs – those are only a few examples of a large range of digital technologies used in multiple ways in the context of the performative arts. Thereby, the inclusion of digital technologies does not only allow a critical debate on its influence and impact on society through theatre, dance, and circus, but also the questioning, reformatting, and remediation of the performing arts themselves.

This panel aims to explore the critical potential of digital application in present-day artistic performance through the lens of semiotics. In line of the section’s fundamental premise, the focus is thereby on the interweaving of semiotics and performativity.

1. Digital Dramaturgy: How to describe the co-presence of various (digital) entities? How do the different sign systems relate to each other? How do human and non-human performers interact? How can we redefine the concept of liveness? What happens when the edges of character blur and shift between multiple bodies and screens? What happens when the costume or body becomes a surface for projection? How is scenography altered and made plastic by digital technology? What are the prospects of digital dramaturgy? How to describe immersive experience through the lens of semiotics? What (research) questions arise? How must signs be handled under the conditions of the digital? How do virtuality reality and risk interfere?

2. Digital Rehearsal: How does the process of communication change during the creation process due to a multitude of digital tools? In what way does the digital influence the mobility of artists? How does digital modeling (especially in costume and stage design) transform the creation process? What influence does the use of digital technologies have on the question of authorship? How do digital technologies influence the training process of high-level acrobats?

3. Digital Communities: How can concepts of community, telepresence, cyber-place and utopia be (re)discussed and examined? How does the digital create an interplay between roles, between performers and audiences? What new possibilities of communication and interaction with the public arise? How do these new possibilities influence the creation of meaning and the semiotic structure of a performance? In what way does the digital provoke new (global) networks and communities? What kind of digital literacy is necessary on the side of the public?

4. Digital Displays: In what way does the digital revolution create the urge to find new means of display and funding? Though which (semiotic) means can we discuss processes of democratization and enhanced accessibility in mediated performances and digital based art funding? How to analyze mediated performances?

5. Against the Digital: In what way are the performative arts presenting a counter draft to digital worlds? How do immersive (non-digital) performances take up, refer to or imitate digital performances?

We invite proposals for research talks and also make explicit invitations for presentations in a diverse range of formats, from artists and practitioners who address questions on the Digital (&) Performance in their work, practice, and/or research-creation.

The congress will be held between 24. and 28. September 2024 at the Technical University (RPTU) in Landau.

Please send your proposals for papers in German or English (20 minutes) and a short academic CV by email to Franziska.Trapp@ulb.be no later than 30. November 2023. The document should include: Title, name of the author, summary of the topic (max. 300 words), affiliation, email address, short-bio, list of publications (max 5).

Talks should not exceed 20 minutes in length. Selected contributions will likely be published.

The panel language is English. Please note that other panels might be presented in German only.