The Paradox of the Post-Human:  Archival Subjects, Systems, and Sites

ASTR/TLA 2014 Conference TLA Plenary Call for Proposals
November 20-23, 2014
Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, Baltimore MD

 

Archival methodologies seek to re-construct the theatrical past through interventions by scholars, practitioners, librarians, and archivists.   The archive is re-animated through human intervention, but first the ephemerality of performance is fixed in time through the creation of archival surrogates. Inert materials populate the temporal space previously inhabited by theatre makers and their documentarians.  Some ensemble companies like the Wooster Group deliberately engage these proxies in performance, while others like the Studio for Electronic Theatre re-position theatre makers through avatars and cybernetic art.

 

This panel invites papers that investigate the paradox of the post-human in the broadening spectrum of archival subjects, systems, and sites.  What do these archival subjects tell us about human culture?  How are archival sites constructed in the digital age?  What new challenges and opportunities are posed by multimedia, digital content and information systems? How do these information systems operate?  Where do individual or institutional memories reside, and what technologies can best support them? 

 

Panelists are invited to consider the following:

 

Archival Subjects

• ·Virtuality, avatars, digital doubles, and surrogates
• ·Cybernetic theatre/Non-Human presence/Internet performance
• ·Agency of things: props, puppets, and proxies

 

Archival Systems

• ·Repositioning the human in a system of information, as subject, agent, and arbiter
• ·Virtual archives
• ·Genealogies of multimedia performance

 

Archival Sites

• ·“Post-human” archival experience
• ·Human finding aids and institutional knowledge
• ·Community (user) contributors:  tagging and distributed processing by those outside the profession

 

Proposals should be submitted as an abstract (maximum 250 words) that includes name, affiliation, mailing and e-mail address.  Full-length papers will not be accepted.  Individual presentations should not exceed 20 minutes.  All submissions must be received by February 15, 2014 and should be sent as e-mail attachments in MS Word to: c[log in to unmask].

 

Plenary Co-Chairs:  Colleen Reilly, Slippery Rock University and Lisbeth Wells-Pratt, University of Georgia