re:place 2007

The Second International Conference on the Histories of Media, Art, Science and Technology

Berlin, 15 - 18 November 2007

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Introduction

re:place 2007, the Second International Conference on the Histories of Media, Art, Science and Technology, will take place in Berlin from 15 - 18 November 2007 as a project of Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH in cooperation with Haus der Kulturen der Welt. This conference is a sequel to 'Refresh!', the first in this series, chaired by Oliver Grau and produced by the Database of Virtual Art, Leonardo, and Banff New Media Institute, and held at the Banff Center in Canada in September 2005, which brought together several hundred artists, scientists, researchers, curators and theoreticians of different disciplines.

re:place 2007 will be an international forum for the presentation and the discussion of exemplary approaches to the rapport between art, media, science and technology. With the title, 're:place', we propose a thematic focus on locatedness and the migration of knowledge and knowledge production in the interdisciplinary contexts of art, historiography, science and technology.

The re:place 2007 conference will be devoted to examining the manifold connections between art, science and technology, connections which have come into view more sharply through the growing attention to media art and its histories over the past years. It will address historical contexts and artistic explorations of new technologies as well as the historical and contemporary research into the mutual influences between artistic work, scientific research and technological developments. This research concerns such diverse fields as cybernetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nano-technology, and bio-technology, as well as investigations in the humanities including art history, visual culture, musicology, comparative literature, media archaeology, media theory, science studies, and sociology.

Conference Programme

The conference programme will include competitively selected, peer-reviewed individual papers, panel presentations, poster sessions, as well as a small number of invited speakers. Several Keynote Lectures, by internationally renowned, outstanding theoreticians and artists, will deliberate on the central themes of the conference.

The conference will also include dedicated forum sessions for participants to engage in more open-ended discussion and debate on relevant issues and questions.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

re:place 2007 welcomes contributions from established as well as from emerging researchers in diverse fields. The conference will be of interest to those working in, but not limited to, the following areas: art history and theory, literary studies, cultural studies, film and media studies, theatre, dance and performance studies, philosophy, history, gender studies, human-computer interaction, contemporary art, musicology, sound studies, anthropology, sociology, geography, science, technology and society studies, history of science, and history of technology.

We are especially keen on empirical, conceptual, and historical contributions that exemplify and expand the diverse methodological and thematic concerns of this extended interdisciplinary area. These might include contributions to:

- institutional histories of centers, sites, or events that have helped to concretize and engender the intersections between media, art, science and technology. Some broad areas could be: experimental arts spaces, collaborative research labs, significant exhibitions, etc. - 'place studies' that highlight significant locations or situations where such interdisciplinary intersections or significant historical episodes have occurred. A few examples might be: 'Tesla in Budapest', 'Flusser in Brazil', USSR in the 1920s, 'Japan between 1950s-1970s,' etc. - historiographical issues, methods, and debates that pose critical questions in the formulation of the histories of the 'media arts'. These might include: archaeology, genealogy or variantology as methodological tools, bridging the divide between art and media history, sociologies of interactivity, etc. - theoretical frameworks from various philosophical and disciplinary positions. Topics might include the exemplary role of film studies or musicology for the study of media arts, or the significance of cultural specificities and location in media and technologies, etc. - the migration of knowledges and practices from different contexts, whether disciplinary, institutional, geographical or cultural. Topics might include: the role of migrant artists in the development of new discourses and practices; the movement and adoption of disciplinary ideas from science into art contexts or vice versa, etc.

SUBMISSIONS

A dedicated website and online paper submission system will be ready for submissions from 1st December 2006. Abstracts of proposals, panel presentations and posters will have to be submitted in either Text, RTF, Word or PDF formats.

The DEADLINE for submissions will be 15 January 2007.

INFORMATION about the submission process and general information can be found at: http://tamtam.mi2.hr/replace

replace 2007 is a project of Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH in cooperation with Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Berlin.

Conference partners include Leonardo, Database of Virtual Art at Danube University Krems' Center for Image Science, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media.Art.Research, Forum Goethe Institut, and others.

Conference chairs: Andreas Broeckmann (D), Gunalan Nadarajan (SG/USA)