Audio-visuality

A conference on the experience of audio-visual art, artefacts, and media texts
May 26-28, 2011

Sound is one of the most overwhelming and omnipresent ‘interferences’ in modern life – and at the same time one of the most volatile and transient [human] experiences. Each individual can – with mobile media like the iPod – be accompanied by her own individual soundtrack, and thus ‘score’ the experience of everyday living. Sound as such normally cannot be seen but both heard and felt, which makes it fundamentally multi- or synaesthetical. Our multi-sensuous reality, appealing to all the senses, is being reduced to exactly an audio-visual culture in (and?) what could generally be considered its electronically mediated version. In relation to the massive amount of audio-visuality we can state that research and the broad field of sound discourse are still inadequate when it comes to the qualitative exploration of aesthetic reception, theoretical and epistemological questions, dimensions, and themes. We are still hesitant and insecure in our knowledge on how an audio-visual phenomenon or a work of art may influence us, how we experience it and (inter)act with it, and what kind of experience, knowledge and understanding a predominantly audio-visual and multi-sensory culture facilitates and how it ?engages us in as late modern human beings. We imagine that the relations between sound and “a good experience” can be explored through genealogies of sound and listening and through reflections on the interactions of sound, listening/hearing and other sensory experiences.

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Making Things Whole Again: The Take That Reunion

3-4 June 2011
An interdisciplinary conference examining the theme of break-up and reunion in popular music acts, focusing on Take That. Organised by the University of Salford in conjunction with the exhibition “Fan Networks in the Pre-Digital Age: Take That Fans 1990-1996”.

The long-anticipated reunion of Take That and Robbie Williams and the unprecedented sales figures for their summer tour 2011 offer an excellent opportunity for scholars from a range of academic disciplines to discuss key issues arising from this contemporary popular music phenomenon. From at least the time of the Beatles, the break-up of a favoured band has had profound implications for fans, followers, and the music industry.

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IASPM Benelux conference

Music Theory and Practice in the Lowlands, Haarlem, 15 April 2011

For the first time in ten years, the Benelux Branch of IASPM is proud to announce a conference to be held on Friday April 15th 2011, possibly the conference will be extended with an extra day on Thursday April 14th 2011. The conference will take place at the Inholland University of Applied Sciences, Haarlem and will be organised in collaboration with International Music Management students. We want to invite students, academics, as well as musicians, music journalists and other music practitioners to submit a paper proposal and participate in the conference. All papers will be in English.

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LitPop: Writing and Popular Music

Friday 24th June 2011, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne

Going beyond well-rehearsed comparisons between Dylan and Keats, this conference aims to bring fresh perspectives to debates about the forms and functions of popular music in relation to literature, exploring connections and conflicts between writing (fiction and non-fiction, past and present), and popular music (modern, contemporary or otherwise).  Where cultural value was once sought for popular music through analogy with literature, or popular music and literary texts were seen as incompatible, writers and critics now borrow the demotic idioms of pop.  Why?

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Home of Metal: Heavy Metal and Place

Capsule and the University of Wolverhampton
Location: University of Wolverhampton
Date: 1st – 4th September 2011

Keynote speakers: Prof. Scott Wilson, Kingston University (TBC) Prof. Deena Weinstein, DePaul University (TBC).

The Heavy Metal movement is littered with accounts of its birth, not only concerning the origins of the sound, but also the geographical and political locations from which the music evolved. The now global phenomenon of Heavy Metal culture has seen much change in the sounds, styles and fashions over its 40 years of history, but is simultaneously acutely aware of its origins in Birmingham and The Black Country (UK).

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Rhythm Changes: Jazz and National Identities

2-4 September 2011, Amsterdam

The first Rhythm Changes Conference will take place in September 2011 and will be hosted in partnership with the Conservatory of Amsterdam.  The three-day Conference will explore the theme of ‘Jazz and National Identities’ and will include presentations from an international line up of jazz researchers.

Keynote Speakers

Professor Bruce Johnson (Universities of Macquarie, Turku and Glasgow)
Professor Ronald Radano (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Conference outline

Throughout its history, jazz has played an important part in discourses about national identity, politics and cultural value; indeed, the music continues to play a complex role in the cultural life of nations worldwide. Within this context, jazz is an ideal cultural form from which to explore a number of critical questions bound up with national identity, from the development of national sounds and ensembles to the politics of migration and race, from the impact of globalisation and the hybridisation of musical styles to the creation of social institutions and distinct communities, from jazz’s shifting aesthetic status from popular to canonical ‘art’ music.  Jazz has developed in a range of national settings through different influences and interactions, so is ideally placed to explore wider issues surrounding identity and inheritance, enabling unique perspectives on how culture is exchanged, adopted and transformed.

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Tango: Creation, Identification, Circulation

International conference
October 27-28, 2011 – Paris, France
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)

This international conference held in Paris will gather together researchers from diverse disciplinary orientations (historical, sociological, anthropological, musicological) working on the tango and its various aspects (music, dance, poetry). This interdisciplinary conference, organized by the Center for Research in Arts and Language (CRAL, EHESS-CNRS) and affiliated with the ANR GLOBALMUS research program, takes place after UNESCO’s official recognition of the tango as international Intangible Cultural Heritage.

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Popular Music Essay Competition

Entrants are invited for the new Popular Music Essay Competition.

Entrants should address the following theme:

Questioning popular music orthodoxies

Essays may engage with any established popular music orthodoxy (whether the assumptions of critics and scholars or the habits of music makers and their audiences). Essays should provoke debate about the established practice and study of popular music, and may propose new approaches and practices.

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UB40 Symposium

Date: Friday 18th March 2011.
Venue: Birmingham City University, UK.
Organizers: Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research in association with Birmingham Popular Music Archive.

This year, the Birmingham-based band UB40 celebrates the 30th anniversary of the release of the album ‘Signing Off’. The band gained its name from an unemployment benefit form and achieved fame and notoriety in the ‘post-punk’ era. Known for a dedication to popularizing the sounds of reggae music the band has maintained a commitment to political issues through its music as well as cultural and social action.

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Cash Rules Everything Around Me: Music and Money

“The best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees, I need money!” Motown founder Berry Gordy co-wrote it, Barrett Strong sang it, and John Lennon’s vocal in the Beatles cover  offered a fervent affirmation. By the time Wu-Tang Clan recorded “C.R.E.A.M.,” however, chasing bucks in pop found kinship more with high stakes gundowns and teens behind bars.  For this year’s Pop Conference, the tenth annual meeting and first outside of Seattle, we invite presentations on a matter Los Angeles knows well:  the relationship between song and paycheck – or, to invoke the O’Jays hit “For the Love of Money,”  bass line and bottom line.

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