REMINDER: Deadline for proposals is February 17th.
CFP: “Articulating Artistic Research 5.0: Positioning the Researcher with/in Artistic Research”
Canadian Association for Theatre Research Annual Conference
May 27th – 30th, 2017 / Toronto, ON, CANADA
Seminar Coordinators: Bruce Barton (University of Calgary) & Natalia Esling (University of Toronto)
The “Articulating Artistic Research” praxis seminar enters its fifth year as part of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research’s annual conference in 2017. “AAR 5.0” extends conversations and investigations developed through its past four sessions, shifting attention to the position(ing) of the researcher in Artistic Research. Building on previous seminar discussions of methodology (CATR 2013), utility (2014), epistemology (2015), and results (2016), AAR 5.0 will focus specifically on the role of the researcher – as facilitator, collaborator, subject, material, observer, recorder, articulator, analyst, creator – and the critical impact of this role on the environment in which it operates, through presence, absence, influence, displacement, adaptation, affect.
We welcome proposals that consider the many ways that researchers are positioned and position themselves within research-creation contexts, across the spectrum from deeply embedded to critical/analytical observation.
* How are these different placements direct expressions of the research’s theoretical underpinnings and methodological frameworks?
* In what ways are a researcher’s possible placements predetermined by her prior education, training, and experience, her personal history and habits, her mental and/or physical capacities?
* How do these positions within the processes shape and define potential outcomes and articulate epistemological possibilities and priorities?
As was the case in the previous four iterations of this seminar, this year’s gathering is meant as a forum to explore diversity in motivation, design, execution, and documentation. However, participants will once again be called upon to explicitly articulate their practices with direct reflection on the following aspects: focus, context, participants, methodology, process design, documentation, dissemination and utility. Through this process of detailed articulation, we hope to draw particular attention to the expanded epistemological horizons attainable within artistic research contexts. We also hope to identify innovative models that may be transferred and adopted within other artistic research contexts and, potentially, within more traditionally organized research processes.
1) A selection of no more than 12 participants will be invited to attend the seminar in accord with the above noted criteria.
2) By March 30th, 2017, all invited participants will share (electronically) with the full group an approx. 3000-word articulation of a personal Artistic Research activity that explicitly addresses the above-identified aspects. (Additional criteria for these documents will be distributed to all accepted participants.)
3) Between March 30th and April 30th, the first stage of seminar engagement will consist of an electronic forum, in which participants of the full seminar group will discuss a selection of published articles addressing the theories and practices of Artistic Research internationally. The focus of this exchange will be issues of process design, methodology, epistemological orientation, and research roles and positions in Artistic Research.
4) After April 30th, the invited participants will be organized into two or three sub-groups (depending upon the number of participants), according to shared interest/focus, and tasked with a structured pre-conference exchange leading to in-conference collaboration.
5) The actual seminar will involve two or three workshop-style Artistic Research exercises designed and facilitated by the sub-groups, involving the participation of other members of the full seminar and attending conference participants.
6) The final hour of the seminar will take the form of an open discussion between the seminar participants and audience members.
7) The entire seminar will be open to all conference attendees.
Seminar proposals should be sent to Natalia Esling (natalia.esling@mail.utoronto.ca) and Bruce Barton (bruce.barton@ucalgary.ca) no later than Friday, February 17th, 2017.
Bruce Barton
Professor and Director
School of Creative and Performing Arts / University of Calgary
CH D100 / 2500 University Dr. NW / Calgary, AB CANADA / T2N 1N4 / 403-210-6265 / bruce.barton@ucalgary.ca
www.brucewbarton.com