THE INTERMEDIAL WORK OF ART
Conception, Realisation, Performance, Reception, Preservation
5, 6 November 2020
Université Gustave Eiffel, Marne-la-Vallée
7 November 2020
Auditoriums, National Library of France, Paris
Organized by
Gustave-Eiffel University, LISAA (EA 4120) International Society for Intermedial Studies (ISIS) Sorbonne University (IREMUS/Bnf/ CNRS, LAM/ UMR 8212)
Partners:
National Library of France, Paris
ENS Louis-Lumière, Université de Montréal
Université de Versailles-St-Quentin-en-Yvelines (CHCSC, EA 2448), aCROSS collective,
Embassy of the Czech Republic in France
Responsible for organizing the congress:
Martin Laliberté (UGE, LISAA)
Lenka Stransky (UGE,LISAA/Rouen University,GRHis)
Organizing Committee:
Jean-Marc Chouvel (IReMUs), Maxime Boidy (LISAA) Lenka Stransky (LISAA/GHRis), Martin Laliberté (LISAA)
Scientific Council:
Christophe d’Alessandro (LAM), Miguel Almiron (LISAA), Olivier Brossard (LISAA), Pierre-Albert Castanet (GRHis),
Sylvie Douche (IReMus), Irène Langlet (LISAA), Carole Halimi (LISAA), Xavier Hautbois (CHCSC),
Aurélie Huz (LISAA), Jean-Marc Larrue (UdM), Geneviève Mathon (LISAA), Giusy Pisano (ENS-LL).
Conference description
As a contribution to numerous theoretical and historical discussions on intermedia- lity by ISIS and its members, this conference aims to study the intermedial work of art through its different stages, from conception to reception, as well as the related matters of analysis and preservation.
With the introduction of new technologies and new media in the past fifty years, two main tendencies have characterized artistic creation. The first tendency explores the exchanges between artistic domains through the interaction of sound, image, and gesture, which can lead to a true osmosis between different types of perception. The second tendency leans toward the abolition of the distinction of “art” and “non-art”, through the aestheticization and dramatization of other cultural fields (mass-media, sports, politics…).
Thus, forms of art express themselves through the use of intermedial and intersen- sory phenomena, through multidisciplinarity and indisciplinarity (that is, the trans- gression of limits or boundaries between artistic domains), but also between diffe- rent types of perception or even different social environments. In the face of such a plurality of approaches outside of clearly defined disciplines and aesthetics, it is necessary to develop a transverse approach to the analysis of interdisciplinary artis- tic practice and theory, as well as to the critical discourse that accompanies them. It is also necessary to define or develop concepts corresponding to such situations: the decline of the object, crises of languages, syntheses of arts and synaesthesia, sensorial conjunctions, pluri-artistic environments, active participation, etc. In pa- rallel to all that, it is also necessary to question the different ways of thinking about “non-art” and the significance of the aestheticization of culture.
New notions such as trans- and hyper-, media- or immedia manifest themselves in intermedial work. The creation of the latter is also at the heart of digital computer creation, which has considerably enlarged original avant-garde conceptions, thus creating an epistemological change and the necessity of a deeper thinking—not theoretical, but anchored in the work itself, its existence, its ways of being in its different stages from conception, realisation, performance, and reception. On top of the transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary methods used, the “indisciplinary” me- thod, in the sense that Viviane Huys and Denis Vernant give to the term—outside of conventional artistic genres, associated to the creators that voluntarily operate outside of any system—could also be an important path of investigation.
This leads to open questions which should be articulated with case studies in in- termedial art. What methodological tools would be necessary to conceive, actual- ly create, and comprehend such a particular artistic production as an intermedial work? What would be the defining characteristics of such a work of art and its prac- tical realisation? What are its creative dynamics, and how do they differ from non-in- termedial art? What are the specific problems of its conception, realisation, and performance? How can its different modes of reception be evaluated? What would be the proper analysis tools or the relevant taxonomies? What terminologies would be best suited to investigate such works? Rather than the traditional artistic concep- tual vocabulary—perhaps too medium—or disciplinary—specific—this conference could be a moment to discuss terminologies of the common multi-artistic processes involved. Last, since archive centres, libraries, and museums encounter numerous difficulties when confronted with such works (at worst, intermedial works of art are badly archived, badly presented, and even excluded from archival collections), this conference aims to explore remedies to those difficulties.