[artinfo] ISEA2006 Edgy Products call

[Adele Eisenstein]

EDGY PRODUCTS CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/edgyproducts/

This is an invitation by the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose:
A Global Festival of Art on the Edge to groups and individuals to
submit proposals for exhibition of interactive art work and projects
reflecting on the thematic of Edgy Products. This is the first and
only call for artworks in this category.

Proposals Due: December 15th, 2005
Final Decisions: Feb 10, 2006

SUBMISSIONS
http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/register/submission.php

The consumer electronic device has become the standard currency of
technology in contemporary global culture.  The light bulb and the
home sewing machine have bred and multiplied to fill every part of our
homes, offices, pockets and purses. They have colonized industry after
industry: publishing, photography, music, film, communications, and
entertainment. Consumer electronics have gradually colonized
publication and photography, music and film, communications and
entertainment.  With the constant promise of increased efficiency,
these devices may be seen as improvements over previous techniques.
But for every measure of ease or efficiency there are secondary
effects, artifacts, and renegotiations.  Far from being neutral,
consumer products are powerful arguments for norms and lifestyles,
suggesting and facilitating specific ways of acting and being in the
world.  Made by researchers and marketers working for corporations,
they form a sort of culture industry.  And as Theodor Adorno
suggested, their products serve the interests of this industry as much
as they serve their users.

Artists and designers have tried to refigure the product, with varied results:
Modernist painters, for instance, often incorporated coffee grinders
or industrial aesthetics; Warhol even ran a factory. Electronic
artists, though, are in a unique position to develop functional
alternatives.  Dunne and Raby have theorized a darker, more
complicated "design noir," comparing traditional products to the
banality of Hollywood film.  Others have moved towards turning
Consumer Off The Shelf (COTS) tools into weapons for activism and
non-violent political dissent.  Such projects acknowledge the
importance of products to shape our lives, and then use the idiom of
an "edgy" product to offer alternatives, stage critiques, or subvert
market interests.

Edgy Products is a call for work by artists and designers who are
manipulating, hacking, subverting, queering, hijacking, recombining,
or reformulating the notion of product.  We are looking for projects
large and small, for gallery installation or public intervention, for
showing, selling, or gifting.

Susan Joyce, Co-Chair
Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Co-Chair

EDGY PRODUCTS CALL COMMITTEE
Kelly Dobson
Anthony Dunne
Nathan Martin
Eddo Stern

CALL
http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/edgyproducts/

SUBMISSIONS
http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/register/submission.php

MAILING LIST
http://cadre.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/isea2006

If you have questions contact edgyproducts at yproductions.com


--
Steve Dietz
Director, ZeroOne: The Network
Director, ISEA2006 Symposium +
ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge
http://isea2006.sjsu.edu : August 7-13, 2006