[artinfo] Call: re:place 2007 Conference (Berlin, November 2007)

[Miklos Peternak]

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)