CALL FOR PAPERS

ARTIUM QUAESTIONES XXXI (2020)

„Cinematic Turn” in Art Practice and Theory

Since the 1960s the moving image, especially video, entered the domain of contemporary art for good. However, film and the related possibility of mobilization and temporalization of diverse spheres of visuality, on the one hand fascinated artists, on the other, it interested some art historians and at the same time bothered others with its elusive quality and the necessity to abandon the contemplative gaze welcomed by more traditional, immobile images. Diverse artistic practices of using film – here understood broadly as a moving image registered on a tape and later in a digital format, animation techniques or a computer-generated image, especially in the form of multimedia projection in a gallery space and beyond it – became an inseparable element of contemporary art, gaining particular prominence in the 1990s and lasting till today. This situation invites various reconfigurations, for instance of the notional framework of art history and art criticism or exhibition theories and practices, in which the classic white-cube is often replaced by a black-box, i.e. a dark room with a single or multi-channel filmic projection or other forms of projected image, which complicates the status of a screen and the relationship between the exhibition space and a work of art. The notion of „cinematic turn” (or sometimes „cinematographic turn”) is used more and more frequently in literature on contemporary art (e.g. Exhibiting the Moving Picture, eds. F. Bovier, A. Mey, 2015) and in Poland, as „cinematographic turn”, it was used by J. Majmurek and Ł. Ronduda to describe the widespread interest of Polish visual artists in film, for whom it is not (or was not) the main medium of their artistic activity (Polish Cine Art, 2015). Against this, in fact much larger, background than the one sketched here, it seems necessary to reformulate the existing theoretical perspectives, generate new terms to adjust critical and analytical discourse to works of filmic/cinematic quality and their conditions. One might also ask a question concerning a paradigm shift in thinking about art and art history, including the one of the past, provoked by the omnipresent moving and temporal image. Some time ago such an attempt was made by Mieke Bal in her book Thinking in Film (2013).

In the next, XXXI number of Artium Quaestionses we would like to devote the thematic section to the above-mentioned issues and related questions. We invite texts which would theorize „cinematic turn”, interpret it, and perhaps even question it, analyze selected phenomena and examples of artistic works as well as offer perspectives revisiting earlier practices and theoretical positions.

We accept abstracts (2000-3000 characters) accompanied by a short academic bio till 3rd January 2020. We accept proposals in English, German and Polish. These should be sent to aq.redakcjaamu.edu.pl. Authors of accepted proposals will be asked to send full texts till 28th February 2020. Texts should not be longer than 45.000 characters and be formatted according to the guidelines available on our website (For Authors).