Agenda

The Greek etymology of ephemeral, ephḗmeros, denotates something that only lasts for one day. 
In many ways, the ephemeral has become a key subject for our 21st- century lives, via temporary architecture and installations, digital art, but also new forms of media and social communication. However, with the invention of photography and videorecording in the late 19th- century, and with new digital technologies in contemporary times, the ephemeral has also found new ways to become enduring, sustainable, and collectable in new archival forms. Yet ephemeral art and ways of being that existed before are more difficult to trace.
The study of 18th- century artistic and performance culture has naturally focused mostly on material objects that have survived in physical or representational forms, like paintings, decorative arts, written texts, and musical scores. But what happens to those forms of art whose material nature is short-lived, fleeting, or perishable? Does the absence of a surviving object preclude the possibility of its examination? 
This conference investigates the topic of ephemerality in French culture in the long 18th- century, embracing both artistic, theatrical, and performance practices created through fragile and temporal media like theatre settings, sketches, fireworks, or spectacles that were performed but never replicated or transcribed, as well as trends in modes of dress, walking, and ways of being. In order to exist, however, ephemerality needs materiality, since any creative process intersects with the material requirements that both artworks and performances need: materials, location, scripts, costumes, instruments. How do ephemerality and materiality connect within the cultural context of 18th- century France? 
This conference seeks to foster a debate not only about the aesthetic significance of ephemerality but also about the political and cultural meanings of the ephemeral. It questions whether, and how, short-lived forms of art had a role in communicating ideas of power. 
The conversation also embraces the politics of absence: What is the long-term effect of ephemerality? How can we create a history of the ephemeral? How do we deal with the relative paucity of sources? And how might our failure to deal with ephemerality exclude certain groups or cultures. 

Scientific support by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles.

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Event part of the research project SPECTACLE. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no 893106