[B900] Notizie/C - CfP: Futurisms: precursors, protagonists, legacies

[Redazione di Bollettino '900]

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     BOLLETTINO '900 - Notizie / C, aprile 2009

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SOMMARIO:

- Call for Paper
   "Futurisms: precursors, protagonists, legacies"
   Utrecht University
   1-3 dicembre 2009
   Scadenza: 15 giugno 2009

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Utrecht University now accepts proposals for papers at an
international conference on "Futurisms: precursors, protagonists,
legacies", to be held in Utrecht from 1 till 3 December 2009.
Confirmed keynote speakers are Gunter Berghaus (Bristol University),
Giovanni Lista (CNRS, Paris), Marjorie Perloff (Stanford University)
and Jeffrey Schnapp (Stanford University); confirmed invited
speakers are Walter Adamson (Emory University, Atlanta),
Timothy Campbell (Cornell University), Silvia Contarini
(Paris-X Nanterre) and Luca Somigli (Toronto University).

Programme

A century after the launching of the first Futurist manifesto
in 1909, and 65 years since Marinetti's death on December 2, 1944,
Futurism seems to be the one avant-garde movement that was most
successful in enduringly inspiring artists and writers around the
world and in thus bridging the gap between theory and praxis.
This conference aims at a better/deeper understanding of Futurism's
significance by focusing on the (relative) innovative qualities
of the movement (Precursors), lesser-known actual Futurist
projects and careers (Protagonists) and its lasting cultural
and political relevance (Legacies).
Like most avant-garde movements Futurism suggested to present
a clear break with the art and ideas of the past. Yet many of
its defining characteristics can be traced to earlier movements,
artists and currents. Futurism's defining forwards looking
rhetoric tended to obscure these relationships as well as its own
regressive character. The Precursors-segment of the conference will
try to address these issues.
The canon of Futurist works and artists is fairly limited.
The scope of the movement has been demonstrated in major
exhibitions (catalogues), but many major works, concepts
and careers remain relatively unknown.
In the Protagonist-section the conference acknowledges the
diversity of the Futurist project by showing, analyzing and
discussing contributions that even most specialists, scholars
and curators tend to leave out of the picture.
The Legacies-part deals with the heritage of Marinetti's
programme, which is overwhelmingly present, in the arts as
well as in society at large. New internet applications have
abolished boundaries of time and space. WiFi offers the
opportunities already advocated in Marinetti's concept of
"wireless imagination". Emerging young poets all over the globe
engage in destroying syntax and introducing mathematical sign
language, thus accomplishing on a worldwide scale Marinetti's
Futurist poetics of telegraphic language. After the success of
concrete poetry and musique concrete in the 1950s, multimedia,
mixed media and inter-mediality presently reign in the arts world.
And also ideologically the Futurist legacy has not lost its
topicality, nor its highly controversial impact, considering
the re-emergence of Futurist ideas on the hygiene of war
in the rhetoric on the war on terror.
Futurism's presence in today's world calls for reflection,
both on the topicality of the futurist legacy during the past
century and on its transformations. In mapping Futurism's
development and presence in technological, artistic and political
terms, the conference hopes to gain better understanding of the
movement's legacy as well as of the cultural dynamics of
transgression vs regression which in the long run determines
Futurism's lasting success.
The conference will host a (neo)futurist event on the evening
of December 2, to mark Marinetti's death exactly 65 years earlier.
It will also include a reflection on the many initiatives,
from the major exhibitions in Paris, London and Rome through
the series of conferences, organized in the year 2009 to mark
the centenary of Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto.

Call for Papers

Proposals are invited for 20 minute-papers. Proposals should
include a brief description of the paper (maximum 250 words),
name, mail and postal address, academic affiliation.
Please submit only by mail at:

futurisms at uu.nl.

Deadline for submission: June 15, 2009.
Notification on acceptance will be given by July 1, 2009.
A selection of the conference papers is eligible for
inclusion in an edited volume on the conference topic, to be
published with a major international academic publisher.
Deadline for submission of the selected and reworked papers
is June 1, 2010.

Paper topics may include, but should not be limited to,
the following fields:

Precursors:
Symbolism/Futurism (antagonism, continuity)
D'Annunzio-Marinetti: the concept of war; Fiume
The dynamics of transgression vs regression and of
elitism vs populism
Futurism considered within the dynamics between avant-garde
and arriere-garde movements
Time-related concepts (past, future, modern, classical, memory,
heritage) and their expression in specific and distinct styles

Protagonists:
Careers and enjeu of Paolo Buzzi (poetry and collage),
Francesco & Pasqualino Cangiullo (parole in liberta'),
Fortunato Depero (toys, design), Enrico Prampolini,
Valentine de Saint-Point
Lesser known projects of Marinetti, Carra', Balla, Severini
and Russolo
The transgression of national boundaries: the positioning
of futurism as an Italian or international movement
(including international performances, itinerant exhibitions,
and the diaspora of futurists)
War & Futurism 1909-1915-1945

Legacies:
Past and present telecommunication technologies as Futurist
writing systems (telegraphy, radiophony, cinematography,
videography, SMS, HTML)
The intermediality in the arts, cross-over forms of expression
(verbal-visual-aural-performative) undermining current concepts
of mediality
The Art of Noise – sampling, soundscapes, ambient
War aesthetics, war spectacles
The topicality of the Futurist "art-action" programme, the
positioning of art versus/within society and politics
(including the relationship between Futurism and Fascism)

Organisors

Geert Buelens
(chair of modern Dutch literature, University of Utrecht)
Harald Hendrix
(chair of Italian Studies, University of Utrecht)
Monica Jansen
(assistant professor in Italian Studies, Universities of
Utrecht and Antwerp)
Wanda Strauven
(associate professor in Film Studies, University of Amsterdam)

Information

Conference website: http://www.hum.uu.nl/futurisms

Mail: futurisms at uu.nl

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(c) Bollettino '900 - versione e-mail
Electronic Newsletter of '900 Italian Literature
Notizie/C, aprile 2009. Anno XV, 2.

Direttore: Federico Pellizzi
Redazione Newsletter: Michela Aveta, Eleonora Conti,
Anna Frabetti, Giuseppe Nava, Saverio Voci.

Dipartimento di Italianistica
dell'Universita' di Bologna,
Via Zamboni 32, 40126 Bologna, Italy,
Fax +39 051 2098595; tel. +39 051 2098595.
Reg. Trib. di Bologna n. 6436 del 19 aprile 1995.
ISSN 1124-1578