Recharging the Sensorium:

CSU Presents a Writing and Multimedia Day of the Arts
Open to Students and Faculty

Friday, April 27, 2007
Campus of Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT


CSU Systems Office, in conjunction with the Connecticut Review, the Helix, IMPAC-CSU Young Writers Trust and Drunkenboat.com, online journal of the arts, present a day dedicated to the conjunction of text with other media.

Despite the popular image of the solitary writer in a garret, writing is not an isolated art or stand-alone skill, especially these days. Writers' expressions of the written word regularly combine with film, music, photographs, paintings, graphic illustrations and other arts, creating new, collaborative forms of composition. Newspaper reporters' stories are brought to readers combined with photos from the field. Poets write lines to match music or find their lines set to music. Ekphrastic poetry, that is the verbal representation of visual representation, has grown exceedingly more popular.

More and more, the web brings together multimedia elements with streaming audio and video, fine art photographs and paintings-and an entire generation relies on the web for their information, entertainment and encounters with the arts. Here words are almost always embedded in a multimedia environment. The combination of words and multimedia is hardly new. Since the advent of recorded history, writing has come in a multimedia form. From the "performances" of scops, gleeman and jongleurs to illuminated manuscripts, language has often conjoined with the other arts.

We invite students and faculty from the four CSU campuses and local high schools to think imaginatively about writing in terms of the new, extensive multimedia reality. Recharging the Sensorium, the inaugural Writing and Multimedia Day of the Arts, will be devoted to examining the multiple connections between text and other media. It will address historical contexts and investigate the use of new technologies. This conference could potentially include collaborations across various disciplines such as (but not confined to) poetry, prose, visual culture, art history, musicology, photography, graphic novels, comparative literature, media archeology, dramaturgy, film, dance, performance, and the natural and behavioral sciences.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

The conference program will include competitively selected, collaborative projects, as well as a small number of invited panelists and speakers. The conference will culminate in a keynote event that will feature the winners of Drunken Boat's inaugural PanLiterary Awards and contributors to the most recent issue of the Connecticut Review.

The conference will also include panels on a variety of subjects, including editing print and online journals, multimedia processes, text and image, and the rapidly changing media environment. Accepted presenters will also have the chance to debut their work in a variety of forums-in gallery space, on stage, in interactive displays and in forums. We will encourage all participants to engage in open-ended discussions that delve into relevant issues and questions. Potential projects include slide shows, dramatic performances, film (run in a loop or featured discretely), public navigation of unusual websites, the public showing of illustrated children's books, the production of graphic novels, musical scores, or operas, choreographed sound or performance pieces, dramatized readings, intersections of visual imagery and textuality, investigations into architecture and space as it relates to other media as well as any other projects that demonstrate the cross-pollination of the arts.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Recharging the Sensorium welcomes proposals that use at least two different media in its conception and execution. Collaborative projects are highly encouraged, but we will also accept solo proposals that propose to use at least two forms of expression (e.g. text and image). We are especially keen on proposals that explore the territory of interdisciplinary artworks. Please note that there is a limited funding available to help students and faculty members complete their proposed projects.

Submissions should include the following information:

1) Name and contact information of the parties involved in the project, including their affiliation with a CSU school or high school (e.g. student or faculty)

2) Brief Project Description: Spend no more than a page describing what it is you intend to do, how it involves the use of more than one media, and what the desired outcome of your project will be. Please feel free to include examples to buttress your ideas. You could mention similar kinds of projects, or models that you are basing your own project on.

3) Specifications: Please indicate what space and equipment you'll need for the composition, production and display of the work in question. If it is an artwork, indicate the expected dimensions and how you would see it situated. If it is a collaborative theatrical or musical piece, or a film, indicate the expected duration and how you would like the piece screened and/or choreographed. If it is a web-based artwork, please indicate what software you will be using to create the piece and how you would like the work viewed. If it involves props or any other equipment (projector, streaming video server, television, DVD player, frames, etc.), please also indicate that information.

4) Budget: To the best of your ability, please delineate how much you expect this project to cost and what you would spend any funding on. Please be aware that we only have a limited amount of funding at our disposal so requests may only be partially funded, depending on the feasibility and scope of the project. No budgets over $500 will be considered. Be as specific as you can.

5) Letter of Recommendation: If you are applying for funding, please also include a letter of recommendation from a professor or other established figure who can vouch for your creative/technical abilities and follow through.

Email your proposal as a Word or .rtf document to: sensorium2007@gmail.com

Feel free to include any urls, related graphic or sound files, or other supplementary materials that might help us make our final determination.

The DEADLINE for submissions will be Wednesday, December 20th, 2006

INFORMATION about the submission process and general information will be found online shortly and a website address will be passed on to those individuals with projects accepted.

Conference Organizers: JP Briggs (WCSU) briggsjp@wcsu.edu, Ravi Shankar (CCSU) shankarr@ccsu.edu, David Cappella (CCSU) cappellad@ccsu.edu, and Andy Thibault (IMPAC-CSU Young Writers Trust) Tntcomm82@cs.com