The fourth annual Practice-based Research Conference, hosted by Royal Holloway, University of London, will take place in Bedford Square, central London on November 4-5, 2016, on the topic of ‘Embodied Methodologies’. We are delighted to announce our two confirmed keynote speakers, Professor Lisa Blackman (Goldsmiths, University of London) and filmmaker Jodie Mack (Dartmouth College, US), and invite practitioners, academics, writers and artists to submit their abstracts for paper presentations, performances, workshops, and installations.

‘Embodied methodology’ is both a practical question of how work, both creative and critical, is composed, and an ontological and epistemological enquiry into the status of the ‘body of work’, the ‘body of knowledge’, and the body itself. Furthermore, the emancipatory ruptures that bodily knowledges and practices might present exist uneasily beside the often equally ’embodied’ techniques of torture, surveillance, and war. What constitutes an embodied methodology, and how might this inform academic and creative work? How might embodied methodologies undertake interdisciplinarity?

We anticipate a range of possible responses, including but not limited to: ecology and climate; activist practices (e.g. samizdat, squatting, direct action); labour and historical materialism; digital and analogue technologies; consumerism; science and medicine; as well as possible challenges to ’embodiment’ through feminism, queer theory and psychoanalysis. We are especially interested in how these questions coexist with forms of practice.

In particular, we invite submissions with the following foci in mind:

Curation

Consider the historical role of the curator (collaborator, instigator, impresario, mediator) and what new forms of curatorial work are emerging or may emerge in the future, including alternative contemporary forms of museum practice (e.g. Museum of Innocence, Istanbul; Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania).

Art and Performance

Workshops, performances or demonstrations of practice that engage with methodological concerns are welcome, as well as theorizations of performance and gesture. Applicants might also consider the conference as a space to explore forms of embodied methodology in terms of how material is presented, how audiences are constituted, and how new spaces of public discourse might come into being.

Space/Site/Place

How do sites create relationships that inform, determine, and inscribe forms/methods of embodiment and materiality? Consider architectural spaces (perhaps including the site of the conference) and their latencies and potentialities, as well as geographies and social use of space.

Please submit a 350 word abstract and short bio to practice@rhul.ac.uk by August 25, 2016 (note revised deadline). Applicants will be notified of their acceptance by September 1, 2016. Attendance is open to the public — registration will open September 1, 2016.

For more information as the conference approaches, please see https://embodiedmethodologies.wordpress.com/ for updates or contact practice@rhul.ac.uk.