CFP: Arts and the City

International Conference

Budapest, Hungary; 23—24 May, 2019

Károli Gáspár University & the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

ANDREW GIBSON, Royal Holloway, University of London

BERNARDINE EVARISTO, writer, London

(author of Lara, Soul Tourists and Blonde Roots, among other novels)

NOÉMI SZÉCSI, writer, Budapest

(author of The Finno-Ugrian Vampire and Mandragora Street 7, among other novels)

Abstracts are invited for an international conference on arts and the city organised by Károli Gáspár University’s Institute of English Studies and the Institute of Philosophy at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Papers exploring various forms of art in the modern urban environment are welcomed. We are particularly interested in the portrayal of cities in literary texts, films, and the visual arts as well as the history of architecture, street art, and performing arts. The conference aims to map the role of the arts in the context of urbanisation, global capitalism and digital technologies, focusing on urban paradigms such as the modern city, the creative city, the playable city, and the smart city, sustainable city, liveable city, among others.

The modern city has often been conceptualized as a work of art as well as a wasteland or jungle, characterized by cluttered connections between artistic styles, social institution, and ideological practices. Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin, for instance, have famously explored the impact of urban space on artistic sensibilities in 19^th century Paris, raising larger questions concerning Western modernity and the Janus-faces aestheticization and mechanization of urban life. Since the spatial turn, art critics such as Rosalind E Krauss have focuses on expanded space of art forms including painting, sculpture, and architecture, among others, exploring the impact of art on space. Though sociologists identify a profound urban crisis in contemporary global cities manifested, among other dimensions, in the dampening of artistic creativity (Florida 2017), contemporary global cities are, in fact, being redesigned to accommodate the arts, often with the aim of foregrounding marginalised narratives. The conference aims to map these intersections: we invite proposals that address the impact of urban space on artistic developments in their historical and cultural contexts as well as theoretical contributions and case studies that explore the role artworks perform in the urban environment. Papers focusing on modern cities, including contemporary cities, are welcome; proposals exploring new ways artworks engage with the built environment (campus art, street art, paint-up competitions, city novel, etc.) are particularly encouraged.

Submissions of creative works including unpublished short stories, photos, poems, short films, and installations that explore any aspect of urban life are also welcomed.

Papers on the following themes will be particularly welcomed:

Performing arts and the city
Histories of architecture and the city
Theories of architecture and the city
Cultural heritage and the city
Painting and the city
Literature and the city
Film, visual culture and the city
Live music sculpture and the city
Central and Eastern European cities from a global perspective
City views in Central and Eastern European literatures (panel organised by Ferenc Hörcher)
Gender and urban art forms
Art and urban density
Public spaces and performative art
Utopia and dystopia
Science fiction and fantasy
Segregation, peripheral urban cultures
Contemporary literature and the creative economies
Street art, murals and the city
Inclusion and indifference in the postmillenial city
Migrant narratives and the city
Tourism and the creative city