[ARENA] Fw: CFP: M/C Journal 'Still'

[arena]

	From: 	  g.fuller  unsw.edu.au
	Subject: CFP: M/C Journal 'Still'
	Date: 	July 16, 2008 12:59:51 AM GMT+01:00


Call for papers:

'Still'

   A topology of stillness haunts the space of flows. Against a
backdrop of increasing research in mobilities and the mobilisation of
forces of all kinds, in this issue of M/C Journal we seek submissions
that attend to and reflect upon stillness. 'Still' might be many
things: stillness as descriptor of a particular form of action,
behaviour or disposition; stillness in an object sense; or still as
in an action - to become still. This multiplicity, in turn, prompts
many questions. How much effort is required to remain still or keep
other bodies, things or ideas still? What might it be to think
through 'still' not as a coherent and singular being-in-the-world,
but something that is more fluid, diverse, fragmented and splintered?
As such, what are some of the various configurations, vocabularies
and politics of stillness?

   Perhaps this could involve stillness as a strategy, such as to
ignore or dissipate the actions of others. In the writings of idlers,
or in the actions of those who refuse or cannot move into lives of
permanent transit, we can see the actions of still. Here, stillness
might emerge as a particular capacity in order to achieve something -
where stillness becomes a productive tool rather than apprehended as
a weak form of action. Alternatively, there is the still implied by
delegation that comes about through trust in objects or various
dispositions of delegation. Can we think about still as form of
Spinozian pact, or a collective suspension? Stillness might be
restorative whereby rest or being still assists with the activities
of the day. Is mesmeric, dreamy stillness different from radical
stillness? What about stillness that is, paradoxically, active -
where it is willed, coerced or designed? What about a more passive
stillness that is not willed intentionally by the body? What do these
different forms of 'still' do to the body? What do they demand from
the body? What are some of the bodily shapes and comportments that
are associated with different forms of being or doing 'still'? And
since they are not mutually discrete, how are different stills
related to each other?

Still in the social sciences has often been a limited antithetical
relation with life, animation and ineluctability of perpetual motion:
it is the arrest of photography, or the limit of a frame. Perhaps in
Walter Benjamin's phrase the 'archaic stillness' of text we see the
power of stillness moving through time, but on the whole, still has
enduring pejorative associations with passivity, the feminine and
notions of negation. In this issue we seek to expand, recuperate and
explore further stillness beyond these narrow affiliations. What does
an appreciation of still do to our understanding of action and
practice? As Paul Harrison claims, perhaps stillness is a necessary
and 'intrinsic rather than contingent aspect of activity'. For
instance, contemporary networked infrastructures produce
subjectivities and ontologies in which the relation of stillness to
movement is not binary or negative but fully integrated into the
processes, aesthetics and politics of mobility. Stillness in all its
forms is more critical in contemporary life, by virtue of and not
despite, increased mobility. And yet stillness remains more or less
unexplored. In this issue of M/C Journal we ask what, then, is
significant about still?

Article deadline: 16 Jan. 2009

Release date: 11 Mar. 2009

Editors: David Bissell (University of Brighton) and Gillian Fuller
(University of New South Wales) Journal website: http://journal.media-
culture.org.au/

Please send any enquiries, and complete articles of 3000 words, to
still  journal.media-culture.org.au.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

David Bissell and Gillian Fuller



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