From: francesco gagliardi (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Dec 18 2007 - 03:09:37 PST
Hi everyone.
I was wondering how people feel about those calls for submissions that
explicitly ask only for very short (75 or 50-word) synopses of the
work. I understand that going through large numbers of submissions is
very time consuming, but one page (which seems to be a pretty standard
requirement for most festival that impose limits on the length of the
work description) doesn't seem to me to be unreasonable, especially if
the festival is also asking for a submission fee. I understand that
short descriptions may be necessary for programs and other printed
material, but that's why some festivals require both a short and a
more full description.
The very idea of a "synopsis" strikes me as problematic in the realm
of experimental work, unless perhaps a festival is explicitly devoted
to experimental narratives. The main problem, however, (regardless of
whether the requirement is a "synopsis" or, more generically, a
"description") is that the imposition of such narrow word limits tends
to encourage standardized, formulaic ways of recasting one's own work
in terms of established experimental "genres." Aren't there enough
"meditations on space", "contemplations of lines" and "painstaking
observations of ordinary time" out there? Why encourage people to take
those kinds of shortcuts when they think and write about their work?
Francesco Gagliardi
PS
For the record, the first paragraph of this posting has 108 words, the
second one 103.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.