24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Venice – Padua, 22-27 August 2022) BYZANTIUM – BRIDGE BETWEEN WORLDS24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Venice – Padua, 22-27 August 2022) BYZANTIUM – BRIDGE BETWEEN WORLDSLeading A THEMATIC SESSION for free communications of 9 international scholars Byzantium and the West on the theme:PROPOSAL ACCEPTED FOR A THEMATIC SESSIONS FOR FREE COMMUNICATIONS:
INEFFABLE ARCHAEOLOGIES BYZANTIUM AND THE WESTCHOREOGRAPHIC AND HIEROTOPIC SENSORIALITIES

Five keywords: Byzantine Ritual and Choreography; Ceremonial and Power Byzantium-West; Hierotopy; Ineffable sensory archaeology East-West.

As an interdisciplinary and international worldwide group of 9 scholars, we would like to bring to your attention this new forum of research and share the results of our individual research in this session at the congress, in the perspective of turning this experience into a new possibility to enhance our collaborative research in the future. The research group will address impermanent phenomena of spreading sensory territorialities (Byzantium and the West) of ineffable stimuli through ritual actions and visions within art history and outside it; at the crossing of both art history and visual culture, to promote new disciplinary forms, such as archaeologies of soundscape, scentscape, and other somato-scapes of ceremonial and power, sentience and enchantment. We study ritual and meta-objects in paradoxical spaces defined by the metastability of the medium – both material and invisible – in transient motion. We explore the cluster of “scape-sentience-motion” within the emergent topologies (chorology & hierotopy) of radiant objects, fleeting visions, shimmering presences, dazzling visions, and acoustic sensations; of light and darkness, of matter, and proto-matter (chôra), of dancing light, and glowing words as effects/affects of premodern Byzantine and Western qualia.

Nicoletta Isar, Copenhagen University (Denmark), the leader of the group email: isar@hum.ku.dk
White Chorology: The Diaphanous Dance

Dr Jasmina S. Ćirić, University of Kragujevac (Serbia) email: jciric@f.bg.ac.rs Dancing Bricks: Late Byzantine performative facades

Maria Cristina Carile, University of Bologna (Italy) email: mariacristina.carile@unibo.it
Experiencing New Rome: visions of light and perceptions of imperial grandeur.

Andrew Simsky, Research Center for Eastern Christian Culture (Leuven, Belgium) email: andrew_simsky@hotmail.com
Hierotopy of darkness: shimmering gold glasses in Roman catacombs
Kathryn Dickason, University of Southern California & New York University (Sept 2021) (US) email: dickason@alumni.stanford.edu
Western Medieval Dance: An Aesthetic of Enchantment
Nadine Schibille, CNRS, IRAMAT-Institut de Recherche sur les Archéomatériaux - Centre Ernest Babelon (Orléans) (France) email: nadine.schibille@cnrs-orleans.fr The Materiality of Light: the making of glass mosaics
Marie Emmanuelle Torres, CNRS, Aix-Marseille University and LA3M Aix-en-Provence (France) email: marie.emma.torres@gmail.com
To Feel Divine Authority: Sound, Space and Performance in Byzantine Imperial Coronations

Julien Ferrando, Maître de conférence, Laboratoire PRISM (UMR 7061) Aix-Marseille University (France) email: julien.ferrando@univ-amu.fr
Sound and Papal Power: Heritage Acoustic Sensations at the Papal Chapel in Avignon (14th c.)