Friday, November 13, 2009

Black Scenes: Call for papers

I.C.R.N. member Alex Nym is editing an interesting anthology and has sent the following message...


Hello,

we are an enthusiastic and professional team of publishers, Culture scientists, photographers and authors (most of us with „scene“ experience) planning to produce a lush & aesthetically designed reference book about the Black Scene (which, although primarily known in English-speaking countries as „Goth/ic“, includes Goth as a subgenre aside others considered generally as black, like EBM, Industrial, etc).

Besides offering a collection of texts by artists, promoters and audience members as well as contributions from social and cultural scientists, which aim to present and analyse the scene and its aesthetics and history, the accompanying illustrations are supposed to make this book a first rate artistic and intellectual experience – and you are asked to contribute!

What we need:
- Text contributions from/about the Scene about a diverse range of subjects. Please send texts ranging from 2000 to 10.000 characters in length to text
[at]ploettner-verlag.de in odt, doc or rtf formats. Size limitation does not apply to scientific contributions, please contact the editor for details: a.nym[at]ploettner-verlag.de. Language used throughout the book will be German; texts in German or English are acceptable.
- Colour- or b/w photos from events and people (e.g. Festival-visitors – please no photos of bands onstage, except they're artistically or historically relevant, see below)
- Documentary photos (e.g. From the 70ies, 80ies..., here concert pictures too)
- Event ads, flyer- and poster-motifs, tickets in colour of b/w (original or digitized; originals will be sent back; don't forget to give return adress)

!All illustrations have to have printable size/resolution (300 dpi, cmyk)!
!Deadline for all contributions is December 23rd 2009!

Since the book is supposed to cover the Black Scene in all its diverse facets, images of all sorts are welcome, whether they be old-school, medieval, cybertech, fetish, industrial, EBM, neofolk, neoromantic etc in nature.
Due to the fact that the book should be considered a kind of documentary exhibit catalogue of the Black Scene, the prime of artistic value in the illustrations cannot be stressed clearly enough; hence artistic works are expressly welcome.

What we offer:
Aiming for a total of 250 pages, we're unable to pay individual fees, but will gladly compensate you with free review copies, ranging from one to five depending on the amount of your contribution. In addition, you'll receive further copies at subscription rate, thus cheaper than in stores or at amazon ;)

What you should consider:
The rights to the text/image has to be the authors/the photographers, so has to be yours; in case we publish any, you'll have to provide us with a consent to print, but in any case we need image captions, e.g. „Tamara, 23, transvestite from Giessen“, something along that line. In relation to historical photos, please relate event, location & date, e.g. „German gothpunk meeting, Cologne, pentecost 1990“ – without such references, we're unable to use the picture.

There is no entitlement to use for print of sent materials – it'll be impossible to use *all* material; please be not disappointed if your material should not have found consideration in the final product. We will keep you updated about the project's progress.

In case there should be too much outstanding material for merely one book, if this one's sales allow, there even might be option for use in a possible sequel.

Contact address/-form:
Digital images of up to 20 MB size can be sent directly to images[at]ploettner-verlag.de.
If you have online-photo-galleries, you can also send link adresses to images[at]ploettner-verlag.de; in case we select your picture(s) we'll get in touch with you. Otherwise, you can send images in printable size/res on CD/ DVD/USB to:

Plöttner-Verlag, Red. „Schwarze Szenen“
Marbachstr. 2a, 04155 Leipzig/Germany

Please note that unrequested data carriers, manuscripts, etc cannot be returned (unless you provide ample return postage).

The best of luck,

Alexander Nym & Claus-Peter Paulus, ed.


„Black Scenes“ – Table Of Content


- Preface: What is black?

- Adolescence of a youth culture: History and development
~ From punk to post-punk: The 70s
~ New Romantic, New Wave, Gothic Rock: The 80s
~ Between bambam and campfire romanticism: The 90s
~ Grown-up subculture: The 21st century


- Genres and sub-scenes
~ Batcave, Gothic rock & -metal
~ Synth-pop, Electronic Body Music, Technoise
~ Industrial & Neofolk music
~ Medieval & Neo-classical music
~ The most important festivals – WGT, M'era Luna, Amphi, etc
~ The scene in the DDR
~ The scene overseas: USA and Japan

- Between Avantgarde and assimilation: Themes & influences
~ Death, Transience, Apocalypse
~ Mysticism, Spirituality and Religion
~ Literature, Art and History
~ Sex and Fetishism
~ Transgression and Taboo-breaking
~ Ethics of DIY – from (self-)destruction to Cultural Engineering
~ Outward boundaries, inward elitism – tolerance and strife for identity

- Self-images and representation
~ From Avantgarde to Apocalypse – how progressiveis the scene really?
~ Roles and rituals – Gender relations
~ „Gothic“ in the media – stereotypes and prejudices
~ Between Indie and commerce – the black music industry
~ Fashion & styling – the aesthetics of the abysmal
~ Creativity in action and the Gesamtkunstwerk: summary

- Authors and photographers

- Literature, Films, Musics (sources)

- Register/glossary