Call for proposals – Poetics of Nature: Creation, Destruction and Transformation in Art Practice

CALL FOR PROPOSALS – The members of the Arts and Media conference organization of the Université de Montréal are pleased to present this 10th edition, entitled Poetics of Nature: Creation, Destruction and Transformation in Art Practice from 16 to 18 November 2022.

The notion of Nature is cyclically questioned in the fields of artistic production, humanities and social sciences, as well as in the political domain. Faced with the tipping point reached by climat change, the relationship our societies have with Nature is more ambivalent than ever. The recent IPCC report of April 2022 has brought back the problems linked to the environmental impact of human beings, re-actualizing the dualism between nature and culture.

Torn by the admiration they feel for the complexity of ecosystems, the artists, privileged mediator between human and non-human, has the will to imitate or even exceed what precedes them. In this context, the term Nature implies in a broad way the natural, spiritual and even virtual element of the environment.

The colloquium intends to question this medium of artistic creation in its most diverse uses as well as the capacity of artists to transmit their intimate relationship with Nature to the public in the fields of art history, research-creation, film and video games studies.

Considering the contemporaneity of the theme as well as the aesthetic, ethical, poetic, political, historical, scientific, social and feminist stakes raised by the notion of Nature, the proposed communications can be inscribed in one or more of the following axes, without being circumscribed to them:

• Theory of Nature: redefining the paradigms of creation, Nature as a medium of creation and transformation, ontology of the camera in the face of wild space, documentary writing, etc.

• Relationship to Nature: ecology, ecofeminism, esotericism, urbanism and land-use planning, ecosystems and societies, animism, contemporary issues of nature 2.0, nature and corporeality, etc.

• Creation and destruction of Nature: cosmogony, cyclicity, renewal, chaos, recourse to poetry, aesthetization, copying Nature, uses of the organic in the plastic arts, practice of the arts and artists’ residences in a natural environment, poems of Nature, etc.

• Exceeding Nature: virtual universe, perfection, hybridization, between human and nonhuman, body and its constraints, reconstitution in the practice of video games, transhumanism, natures dominated by fiction, ecological utopias, etc.

Modalities for submissions and selection of contributions:

We invite undergraduate and graduate students as well as professors, lecturers, researchers, and museum, cinema and video game professionals, of any disciplinary horizon, to submit a communication proposal in French or English before June 30, 2022. Papers (300 words max.) should be submitted by email to the following address: artsmedias.udem@gmail.com

You may also ask any questions about the symposium using the same address.

In order to promote international exchanges, the conference will be bimodal, held at the Université de Montréal and via Zoom.

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