Sound design, film music and music editing in general exert a primary function in conveying senses of space and place in audiovisual media. Strategies for connoting space and place in film sound and music vary with cinematic practices across history and according to transnational patterns of negotiation between global and local modes of production. At the same time audiovisual communication, when rich in local connotations, allows insights into specific socio-historical contexts and the documentation of human geographies. This conference aims to bring together scholars interested in mapping geographies of music and sound practices in audiovisual media (e.g. film, television, video games, interactive art). We invite fresh perspectives on film music and sound that are willing to embrace aspects ranging from individual approaches to space and place to collective geographies, also considering industrial trends and intermedia connections. Cultural, ethnographic, historical, analytical, data-driven and aesthetic approaches are welcome, as well as research on industrial and commercial practices.

We encourage papers addressing research questions that may include:

•how places, locations and environments are sonically represented in audiovisual media and characterized by specific musical genres, timbres, vocal inflections, soundscapes etc.;

•how scripts, treatments, screenplays etc., as well as musical drafts and other textual sources of filmmaking, pre-determine or affect the soundscape of films, television series and video games;

•how sound and music concur to define the boundaries between real, simulated and virtual spaces in films, television series and video games, and how ideas of reality and simulation are linked to the notions of immediacy and authenticity;

•how spatial configurations of sound formats in the audiovisual domain impact the audience's experience of virtual and fictional spaces;

•how sites devoted to audiovisual consumption (e.g. movie theaters, public and private venues, mobile settings etc.) affect strategies of sound organization in audiovisual media (attention may be called to the architecture of screening venues or the viewers/listeners' relation to the presentation space);

•how the mapping of archives, sound documents and oral histories sheds light on local audiovisual practices in connection with global trends as well as with contiguous media practices (e.g. phonography/discography, radio, new media etc.);

•how the study of sound in audiovisual communication can offer descriptors for the complex representation of space (e.g. in the "thick mapping" or in the emerging field of Qualitative Spatial Representation) or receive input from the latter, for instance by linking specific locations to cultural connotations, production facilities, social systems etc.

We invite proposals for individual papers, pre-constituted panels and poster presentations. Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words (plus a 200 words presentation for panel proposals) and a short biography (max. 250 words) to geographiesofsound2019@gmail.com

INVITED SPEAKERS:
– David J. Bodenhamer, Professor of History and Director of the Polis Center (Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, USA)
– Kevin J. Donnelly, Professor of Film and Film Music (University of Southampton, UK)

ROUNDTABLE:
The conference will also be comprised of a roundtable aiming at gathering artistic and practice-based research projects. The roundtable will be curated by Miriam De Rosa (Senior Lecturer, School of Media and Performing Arts, Coventry University, UK) and will tackle topics such as sound art and placemaking, mapping and navigating space through sound/aural artistic practice, audiovisual media and acousmatic music, VR, AR, interactive screen and sound media.

CONFERENCE DATE AND VENUE:
19-22 March 2019
Department of Musicology and Cultural Heritage, University of Pavia (Cremona)

LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Alessandro Bratus (Lecturer, Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali, Università di Pavia)
Alessandro Cecchi (Lecturer, Dipartimento di Filologia, Letteratura e Linguistica, Università di Pisa)
Maurizio Corbella (Lecturer, Dipartimento di Beni culturali e ambientali, Università di Milano)
Elena Mosconi (Associate Professor, Dipartimento di Musicologia e Beni Culturali, Università di Pavia)

TIMELINE:
Abstract proposal due: by 10 September 2018
Notification of acceptance: by 31 October 2018