[Air-L] call for proposals: Video Vortex XI (Kerala, India)

[Geert Lovink]

Video Vortex XI: Call for Responses

23-26 February 2017, Kochi-Muzeris, Kerala, India

Video Vortex XI: Video in Flux

Video technology has radically altered the ways in which we produce, consume and circulate images, influencing the aesthetics and possibilities of moving image cultures, as well as yielding a rich body of scholarship across various disciplines. Given its ease of access and use, video has historically been aligned with media activism and collaborative work, further enabled by digital platforms, that facilitate transnational networks even as they exist within heightened systems of surveillance. Having emerged as the driving force behind the web, social media, and the internet of things, video, as Ina Blom (2016) suggests, is endowed with life-like memory and agency. As witnessed in the recent network crash in America as a result of the hacking of web cameras, video overload can even become a cause for infrastructural vulnerability. While the infrastructures of video in Europe and America may almost be taken for granted, in many parts of the global South, video exists across uneven conditions, and this invites engagements with video history and theory that are attentive to these varied lives and forms of video.

Video Vortex XI proposes to place emphasis on these ‘other’ video cultures, which have largely evaded scrutiny under the fiction of video’s universalism. In keeping with this intention, Video Vortex XI is being held in the city of Kochi-Muzeris, in the midst of the 3rd Kochi biennial, which gives contemporary form to the histories of an extremely cosmopolitan city. Kochi-Muzeris housed large Chinese, Arab, Jewish, and Christian populations from its beginnings, and was governed by the Portugese, the Dutch, and the British, before becoming part of independent India in 1947. As such, the city provides a perfect location -- as the centre of trade between East Asia, South Asia, and Europe – for addressing the diversities and the synergies implicit in video cultures across the globe.

We are interested in the sharing of provocations, research, speculations, video and film work that responds to current debates in film, video, media, networks, and game theory, while being particularly attentive to the implications that technologies of live video, surveillance, virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence have for the future of video & media cultures.

We particularly encourage work that addresses the use of video in activism and political mobilisation, artistic practices, technological developments attendant to the medium (and its future), as well as the formal qualities of video in the digital post-national and post-medium context.

The two day conclave will include screenings, discussions, workshops and round tables and we invite proposals that address (but are not limited to) the following themes. We are particularly interested in work that is Asia-centric but are open to contributions that engage with video cultures in the Global South :

Histories of video in Asia
Video art and activism
Aesthetics of Online video
Video and surveillance
Video archiving & curation
Infrastructures and platforms of video
Emergent technologies of video and moving image
We invite proposals in the following formats:

Films & Curated Screening Programmes:  

Filmmakers and video artists are invited to submit work that addresses the themes and concepts outlined in the Video Vortex XI call. Curators are invited to propose short screening programmes of up to 3 hours that showcase video/film work , in response to the themes outlined. A focus on Asia is encouraged, but is not essential.

Workshops:

We invite video practitioners, artists, researchers, scientists, content producers and theorists to submit proposals for workshops that explore critical making as a mode of critique and inquiry. We are especially keen on hearing from those working with Virtual or Augmented reality, as well as those working with/on specific video archives. If you are proposing a workshop, please indicate costs for materials, as these will have to be built in separately as registration fees. All workshop organisers will have to make their own arrangements for materials required.

Sessions, individual contributions, reflections, responses & performances:

We welcome suggestions for sessions, round tables, and  individual interventions addressing any of the topics outlined in the call, as well as proposals for performances.

About Video Vortex XI

Video Vortex XI will take place in the Mill Hall, an old grain mill in Mattanchery, which is one of the locations for the Kochi-Muzeris biennale 2017.  Video Vortex XI will form a collateral event to the biennale, which attracts large numbers of artists, curators, scholars and tourists from around the world between the months of December 2016 and March 2017, when the biennale is on. For more information on the biennale see https://kochimuzirisbiennale.org <https://kochimuzirisbiennale.org/>.

Submission deadlines:

Please email proposals to Rashmi Sawhney: rashmi.sawhney at gmail.com <mailto:rashmi.sawhney at gmail.com> and Andreas Treske: treske at gmail.com <mailto:treske at gmail.com> by 16th December 2016.

Selected applicants will be notified by 30th December 2016.

Registration Fees:

All Video Vortex XI events are open to the public. However, some of the workshops may have registration fees to cover material costs.

Visa Application Guidelines:

The Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, can provide a letter of invitation to all Video Vortex participants who require one. Please note that it can take 1-4 weeks to get an Indian visa depending on your country of residence.

Travel and Accommodation: participants will have to make their own arrangements for travel and accommodation. However, we can recommend a list of hotels close to the Video Vortex venue. 

Video Vortex XI is being organised by the School of New Humanities & Design, Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology in collaboration with the University of Bilkent, Ankara, and the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam.