Call for Submissions - Forgetting

By Other Means is a start-up production group looking to organise events with an interdisciplinary approach to selected critical topics. Each event will achieve this by promoting various media, including exhibitions, performances, publications and lectures. The first of these will be held in London this June and will explore the idea of Forgetting.

The drive behind this project is to stage a forgetful intervention; a short term multimedia exhibition designed to consider the experience of forgetting, and its effects on art, culture, science and everyday life. By approaching the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective it is our intention to discuss forgetting as a tactic for both harm and aid, condemnation and liberation. Being a new initiative, the project has a lot of flexibility in terms of format and scope and look forward to tailoring the event to best fit selected submissions’ requirements.

The event will take the form of a multimedia exhibit organised throughout a series of spaces (think promenade performance) with an accompanying written publication. Through visual, performed and musical cues viewers will be encouraged to let their curiosity get the better of them and loose themselves in the space, if only temporarily. By Other Means is particularly interested in mobile and dynamic performance which can be staged in multiple environments and scenarios and can serve as a guide or immersive experience for the viewer.

Submission specifications:

-Academic writing: an abstract which outlines key areas, suggested bibliography, themes and hypothesis. Final work should be no more than 3000 words. Deadline April 1st

-Creative writing: prose, theatre and poetry: Excerpt indicative of writing style and a brief description or synopsis of the finalised piece. Final work should be no more than 3000 words. Deadline April 1st

-Visual art-pieces: 3-5 high res photographs of work indicative of style and methods, and a proposal for the work you wish to submit. Deadline April 1st
-Performance and Dance Choreography: 3-10 minute recording of an existing submission or previous relevant work alongside a written proposal of up to 500 words for performance including any specifications concerning space, props, tech or people required. Deadline 10th March

-Video and Music: 3-10 minute of relevant previous work, alongside a short description, a proposal, specifications (space, props, tech, people) for setup and and corresponding score or visual work [if any]. Deadline April 1st

-Installation and Set Design: Photographs of previous work or designs for proposed work alongside a written proposal of up to 500 words exploring theme, intent and costing. We are particularly interested in discombobulating or maze-like constructs, keeping in mind that it has to be a temporary construction and appropriate for placing art-works and lecture spaces within it. Deadline 10th March.

Example Areas of interest:

- Cultural memory/amnesia.
- Forgetting as a narrative device.
- Understanding Alzheimers or Eidetic memory.
- The effects of forgetting on creative practice.
- Forgetting history, culture, language.
- Expressing forgetting and loss.
- Forgetting as a critical (disruptive?) cultural, social or political tactic.
- Remembering as a means to forget? Commemoration and historicisation.

To participate please email your submission to [email protected] with a form (attached or available on our website: byothermeans.co.uk) and a personal statement (no more than 500 words) grounding your work within the context of the theme. No application fee.