CFP: On Multimodality. In: Art Style | Art & Culture International Magazine, New York / São Paulo: https://artstyle.international/

Call for Essays in the online open access, peer review journal Art Style | Art & Culture International Magazine, New York / São Paulo: https://artstyle.international/ on:

Multimodality: On the sensually organized and at the same time meaningful and socio-culturally relevant potential of artistic works

Editors: Martina Sauer (Senior Editor, Institute for Image and Cultural Philosophy: https://bildphilosophie.de/en-gb) and Christiane Wagner (Editor-in-Chief, University of São Paulo: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3445-1446)

In research, multimodality is generally seen as closely connected with perception, which is addressed via specific “medialities” and thus, textures of information carriers. From a perspective focused on our perception, however, we respond not only to technical media and their multimodally-structured sign systems but also to our bodies’ very own. In this way, the originally materially-bound background concept of media can be expanded. Also, sounds and gestures or designs performed with the body or the hands (speech, music, gestures, and images), which are not classically considered media, can be included. That is because multimodal communication is also possible through their respective specific structural conditions or sign systems. Thus, essential for the concept of multimodality, besides the specific addressing of the senses, is the respective mode or dynamic side of (communicative) meaning processing via signs (Schneider and Stöckl 2011). Not only, but especially for the arts, it is true that their abstract structures—modes—hardly meet the claim of concrete meanings or codes. Brushstrokes, different colors, and shapes, or gestures and sequences of tones, for example, have no concrete meaning. Instead, they prove to be fundamentally open to meaning so that compositions can be created from them that correspond to different expressive needs and statements of the producers. However, the cognitive processing of the modes by the recipients is also correspondingly open because it depends on their situation and time as well as their socio-cultural preconditions. If we consider this open, dynamic side of the arts, further questions arise concerning the foundations of aesthetics in sensations (aisthēsis). Do the various perceptual stimuli evoked by the modes of the arts also have a communicative function? Are the energetic impulses received through sounds and gestures or through colors and shapes communicatively relevant with regard to possible thematic statements of works of the arts? What consequences can be drawn from this in socio-cultural terms? To better understand the possible reaches and communication potentials (affordances) of the arts, concrete multimodal analyses are needed in addition to the theoretical proposals indicated here. For this purpose, this issue seeks to contribute to the theme by soliciting contributions that exemplify both the structural and the signification potential of artistic works through multimodal analysis. In general, contributions that clarify how the structural characteristics—the modes—of the arts, their perception, and possible meaning in terms of content interrelate and how they should be understood as communicative and thus socio-culturally relevant are very welcome.

You just need to follow the magazine’s author guidelines for information: https://artstyle.international/author-guidelines/ and submit your extended essay or scholarly article of minimum 3,000 and maximum 5,500words for evaluation to [email protected]. We will get back to you with acceptance or nonacceptance feedback after the reviewers have evaluated your contribution. If your submission is accepted, we will inform you about the publication schedule.

Email address for contributions:
[email protected]

Deadline for submission: 28 February, 2022
Expected date of publication: 30 June, 2022