IV International Conference on Sonorities Research (CIPS)
Posted: September 30th, 2024 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | Comments Off on IV International Conference on Sonorities Research (CIPS)Silences
Dates: June 4-7, 2025
Location: Federal University of Espírito Santo – Vitória/ES – Brazil
Online stage: May 31, 2025
The story of composer John Cage is well-known, as he underwent an experience of deep silence in an anechoic chamber and found that he could still hear the internal sounds of his own body. This story confronts us with the inevitability of a complex phenomenon, of a multiple and inexhaustible nature: silence.
Silence, which would seem, at first, to be a counterpoint to sound, a kind of negative, reveals itself as an overflow of the audible boundaries. Western music makes explicit the inescapable importance of silences, from the staff to sound synthesis. In the score, the pause is a marked and significant element, a fundamental part of the composition itself. In digital audio workstations, silence is a block of time without a pulse that is added to the compositional timeline. The absence of sound, it can be concluded, is not a nullity of meaning, but rather the partial result of a broader communicational machination of power games to be mapped from interdisciplinary perspectives.
By adopting silences as a theme, we seek not only to address more formalist discursive perspectives in the musical spectrum, but also to bring the discussion to the social and political fields, thinking about the silencing of peoples, experiences and cultural repertoires. Despite Cage’s contrary observation, silence can also be something that accompanies us and confronts us with the constant threat of nonexistence, erasure and dissolution. This paradox intrinsic to the idea of silence presents itself as an important theme to be rescued and updated in order to understand the challenges of the present time in the field of sonorities.
The IV CIPS welcomes proposals for scientific presentations and artistic performances (for these, we will hold a separate call soon). We welcome papers that deal with all types of support, format, and media that deal with sounds. Some of the perspectives, but not the only ones, that are of interest to this conference are:
- Sound ecologies: noises that silence, silences that amplify;
- Images and silences; voids and noises;
- Technologies and models of production of silence;
- Sound, immobility, and death;
- Silence aesthetics;
- Sound ambiances and atmospheres that are silent or that silence;
- Silences, their affects and processes of signification and sensation;
- Silence in compositional practices;
- Becoming-silence;
- Sound politics and cultures: sounds, silencing, struggles, and insurgencies of contemporary ways of life.
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
Abstracts must be submitted by December 6th 2024 to the email [email protected] in .doc (or .docx) format, with the following in the email subject line: “IV CIPS – Abstract”.
The IV CIPS will be an in-person event, but there will be an online stage for a limited number of scientific papers approved by the scientific committee. Such proponents must be located outside the Southeast region or outside Brazil and are unable to attend the event in person. We have reserved 24 spots for this modality.
The text must be formatted in Times New Roman font, size 12, with 1.5 spacing. The document must include, in this order:
- Title of the proposal;
- Proponents, their respective emails and institutional affiliation (or main activity); maximum degree, occupation or area of activity, city, state and country of residence; Abstract of up to 500 words, indicating the theme, objectives, research problem, theoretical framework, methodology and adherence to the general theme of the event;
- Bibliography of up to 5 titles;
- Indication of preference for online presentation (limited number of panels, only for authors from outside Brazil or outside the Southeast region).
Abstracts can be submitted in Portuguese, Spanish or English. We will correspond with the first author of the paper regarding the receipt and evaluation of the abstract.