Uncommon Senses III:
Back to the Future of the Senses
Concordia University, Montreal
6–9 May 2021
INFORMATION FOR PARTICIPANTS
Registration is Open!
>> VIRTUAL BOOK OF ABSTRACTS HERE <<
Welcome!
We are looking forward very much to receiving you – virtually – here in Montreal for the Uncommon Senses III: Back to the Future of the Senses conference from 6-9 May 2021.
Here is some information about the organization of the conference.
Uncommon Senses III will open at 9:15 am (Montreal/Eastern Standard Time or EST) on Thursday May 6 with some introductory remarks by the Conference chair, David Howes. This will be followed by two regular sessions, and then a plenary session starting at 1:30 pm (EST). The plenary speaker will be Ellen Lupton of the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York. Her talk is entitled “Touchy Feely Manifesto: Design for the Senses.” Ellen will speak for 50 minutes followed by a 40 minute Q&A, moderated by one of the conference organizers. The plenary will be followed by a Virtual Get Together, on which more below. There will be a second plenary on Saturday May 8, starting at 1:30 pm. It is entitled “Weaving New Ways of Knowing: Decolonizing the Senses, Recovering Legacies” by Diane Roberts, co-founder of the highly acclaimed Arrivals Legacy Project.
Program
Each day is divided into four periods. There will be 3-4 concurrent 90-minute sessions during each period.
9:30 am – 11:00 am
11:30 am – 1:00 pm
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm
3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
You can read all about the conference presentations in our Virtual Book of Abstracts.
Presentations and Recordings
We strongly recommend (but do not require) that you pre-record your 20-minute presentation and send it to us by April 13th using a service such as WeTransfer (NOTE: this only applies to individual presentations and some artist talks, not workshops or roundtables). This will ensure that your presentation is free of connectivity or other technical issues. For convenience, we recommend you pre-record a presentation in Zoom, but you are free to produce your video using whatever method you prefer.
During your conference session we will play your recording, after which you will engage in a 10-minute live Q&A.
This is a predominantly oral-aural (and visual) conference. You are not required to submit a copy of your paper in advance, and we are not planning to publish the proceedings of the conference. The session you are in will be recorded (unless you signal that you prefer that your presentation not be recorded), and the recording will be available for registered conference participants to watch for up to one month after the conference. We would like to entertain the possibility of creating a Highlights Reel of the conference featuring select presentations in lieu of publishing the proceedings.
Individual paper
If you proposed an individual paper, your presentation will be grouped with two other presentations on analogous topics. You will have 20 minutes to present your talk, followed by a 10-minute Q&A, moderated by one of the conference organizers. Please respect the time-limit! We expect that many of you will have a powerpoint to accompany your talk, and we will be pleased to accommodate this.
Panel
If you proposed a panel, the three presentations in your panel will be allocated 30 minutes each: 20 minutes for the presenter to deliver their paper followed by a 10-minute Q&A, moderated by the panel organizer. The panel organizer may elect to postpone the Q7A until after all the papers have been presented.
Video or Artwork
If you proposed a video or artwork, you will have up to 20 minutes to show your video or present your artwork followed by a 10-minte Q&A. Videos and/or artwork presentations will be grouped in threes, to fill up a 90-minute session, and we also hope to display the videos and/or artworks in a virtual gallery.
Workshop or Roundtable
If you proposed a workshop or roundtable, you will have a full 90 minutes in which to stage it. The organization of the session is entirely up to you. If there are any special requirement for your workshop (e.g. you would like the participants to have certain items on hand, such as scents or particular devices), please include this information in your abstract.
Virtual Get Together
There will be the possibility of participating in Virtual Get Togethers throughout the conference, particularly after the two plenaries. Be prepared to get whisked (virtually) to exotic destinations, identify with some avatar, and tangle (digitally) with fellow conference-goers. Other virtual activities we are planning include a Virtual Sensory Tour of Montreal, Virtual Meet the Author Sessions, and a Virtual Feast for the Senses. Details to follow.
Portal
The Conference portal is open—LINK HERE—so you can purchase tickets: $60 regular participant or $30 student participant.
Foretaste
In closing, we would like to present you with a foretaste of what’s to come by sharing two videos with you. The first is a virtual sensory tour of the Jean-Talon Market in Montreal. This video was made by Tereza Stehlikova during Uncommon Senses II (2018). Tereza’s work will also be the focus of a Roundtable on “Turning videos in the time of COVID.”
Theatre of Fruit from tereza stehlikova on Vimeo.
The second is a video that cultural sociologist Monica Degen (Brunel University London) made to serve as a prelude to a recent TECHNE conference on the theme of “Experience.” This video offers a critical sensory sociology of contemporary urban life, which is engaging and critical at once.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at senses@concordia.ca
