Abandon Normal Devices (23-27 Sept, 2009)
I’ll be working with AND during these next few months and probably calling one a few people to get involved. Keep your calendar free!
I’ll be working with AND during these next few months and probably calling one a few people to get involved. Keep your calendar free!
Call for papers and presentations:
Biodigital lives: making, consuming and archiving the lives of technoscience: 14 July 2009, 9am – 5.30, Educational Development Building (EDB), University of Sussex, UK,
Hosted by the Centre for the Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (CESAGen), the Centre for Material Digital Culture and the Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research,
Convened by Dr Kate O’Riordan and Dr Adrian Mackenzie, other confirmed participants include Dr Caroline Bassett, Anna Dumitriu, Dr Joan Haran, Dr Adam Hedgecoe, Dr Margaretta Jolly, Professor Maureen McNeil, Dr Sharif Mowlabocus, Dr Jussi Parikka, Ms Lizzie Thynne, Mr Kirk Woolford,
The aim of this one-day workshop is to examine issues and questions about digital and biodigital life, lives and identities framed by biosciences, contemporary media and biopolitical cultures. From the lives of scientists to the technologisation of life, ‘Biodigital lives’ will analyse biotechnological and bioinformatic forms and practices of identifying, archiving and storying the living. It will discuss diverse forms of new/digital mediation and informatics as they pertain to the lives of people, plants, animals, microbes, viruses and ecosystems entangled in global media, biopolitical institutions and bioeconomies.
Topics might include:
How digital/life history and genetic genealogies intersect
Biomediation and biotechnological media in reading and writing lives
Biodigital memory, narration and identity (e.g. Memory and archive, genetics and life story, digital life practices)
Genomic databases and biobanks as biographical resources
Techniques of writing, reading, editing and publishing the lives of species and populations
Life archives and life histories of humans and non-humans
Synthetic biology and bioinformatic communities from the perspective of biological literacy, design and participation
Genomes as digital/media artefacts – new media/biotech convergences and commercial genealogies
Genetics and genomics as/in life narratives and popular culture
Aesthetic encounters in biodigital life in sci-art, film, games, software, art etc
Genealogies and critical potentials of bioart/digital media art intersections
The workshop aims to make visible, and interrogate, the very different kinds of info-bio mediation, hybridisation and divergence that are taking place, to work through some of the specificities and connections across diverse fields of contemporary digital life making and storying. The workshop will be arranged around short presentations and will favour discussion and broad participation. Please send abstracts of 300 words and a short bio to Kate O’Riordan by April 20th 2009: k.oriordan@sussex.ac.uk
Key Dates:
Monday 20th April – deadline for all submissions
Monday 11th May – final confirmation and draft programme
Tuesday 26th May – final programme published
Wednesday 3rd June – final deadline for registration
Tuesday 14th July – EVENT
Please note that the Journal of Media Practice will be holding an event on Monday 13th July at the same venue and participants are encouraged to stay for both events.
*Apologies for cross-postings. Please forward to those interested.*
1st call for papers:
Conference EMOTIONS & MACHINES
Friday 21st August 2009
University of Geneva, Switzerland
Submission deadline: April 30th.
“As machines get to be more and more like men, men will come to be more like machines” Joseph Krutch
The Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva is organising a one day interdisciplinary conference on Emotions and Machines. Submissions are invited of approximately 4500 words, suitable for 45 minute presentations. In exceptional cases, an extended abstract (1000 words) may be accepted in lieu of a complete paper submitted shortly afterwards.
Relevant issues include but are not limited to:
* The possibility of emotional machines
* Whether emotions are necessary for true AI.
* The ethical implications of emotional machines
* The emotions of human-machine interaction.
* The extension or embodiment of human emotions by machines
* The recognition of emotions by artificial systems.
* The aesthetics of the ‘uncanny valley’ (papers discussing aesthetic issues of emotions and machines are most welcome)
Please note that while we hope to reimburse limited expenses, speakers should NOT expect to have their travel or accomodation expenses paid.
Papers from post-grads are also welcomed (please note as such on submission).
Submissions should be sent to Dr Tom Cochrane thomas.cochrane@unige.ch by 30th April.
I’ve been trying to work out what to blog and this is the only place to start. Taken from the Q and A session which just concluded.
Q: have you ever thought that aliens might be machines?
A: we do take that seriously.
(My keynote on ‘Extraterrestrial Ethics’ went swimmingly)
Back Home after Beijing.
Emerging Ethical Issues of Life in Virtual Worlds
Call for chapters
Scholarly articles on emerging issues of life in virtual worlds such as
Second Life are solicited. Work that connects streams of ethics research
and theory to virtual worlds as they are and to what they are developing
into is particularly sought. Among the virtual world issues explicitly
invited are: privacy, monitoring and eavesdropping, the fear of being
exploited, the loss of identity, ethical impacts of aesthetic decisions,
values and ethics manifested in the social processes and their relevance for
activities such as design there, professional ethics, standards of integrity
given identity issues and practices, malevolence and altruism, legal and
ethical doctrines of confidential and privileged information, ethics for
students and instructors, ethical development stages and issues, vandalism,
harassment and crime, how ethics and values are inscribed in the discourse
and practices of social groups, and how they can change and emerge in the
midst of pragmatic concerns, such as collective tasks.
Proposals of any length are welcome, though the more detailed and clear the
easier it will be for us to have it properly reviewed. Also, include your
full contact information, institution affiliation and position. Please
include information on your related publications and other work.
Schedule.
Proposals due August 15, 2008.
Notification of acceptance/rejection decision after review process,
September 1, 2008.
First drafts of chapters due, January 15, 2009.
Revised final drafts due, March 15, 2009.
Publication, June 15, 2009 (Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, NC).
Editors: Charles Wankel, St. John’s University, New York, and Shaun Malleck,
University of California, Irvine. Send all correspondence to both
wankelc@stjohns.edu and skmalleck@gmail.com . Include in the subject field
VW ETHICS.
Part of the Biennial for 2008
On 5th – –7th September this year, Glasgow University is hosting the 2008 Critical Legal Conference. For those unfamiliar with it, this is an annual international conference, which – –despite the name – –is also likely to be of interest to many people (academics and others) with no direct involvement with law.
I have attached a Call for Papers, and I would be grateful if you would consider printing this out and displaying it at your institution, drawing it to the attention of prospectively interested colleagues, or – –of course – –submitting an abstract yourself. (Some of you have already agreed to attend, so please disregard the last). In view of your areas of interest, may I draw your attention in particular to the Healthcare stream, described at http://www.criticallegalconference.com/blurbs/nblurb4.htm and provisionally titled The Choice Agenda: Patient or Consumer? As you’ll see from the site, one of our principal objectives is to tease the CLC away from some of the more abstract and esoteric theorising that has characterised it in recent years, and to re-engage to some extent with political causes and social movements, and I hope this stream will be a positive step in that dir ection. If, however, you have ideas for papers or even streams that lie outwith that precise topic, please don’ ’t hesitate to contact me about them.
Please note that the closing date for abstracts is 31st May.
From Colin Gavaghan, Uni of Glasgow
Colin Gavaghan <c.gavaghan@law.gla.ac.uk>
Teaching the Body
The editors of Transformations, a peer-reviewed journal, seek
articles(5,000 – 10,000 words) and media reviews (books, film, video,
performance,art, music, etc. – 3,000 to 5,000 words) that explore the
body in a
variety of pedagogical contexts and disciplinary perspectives-literature,
science,women’s and gender studies, anthropology, folklore, history,
psychology, sociology, art, photography, geography, religion, cultural
studies, working-class studies, ethnic studies, disability studies, age
studies, narrative medicine. and others.
Topics might include: the body in global and transnational contexts;
the culture of self-help; environmental issues; im/migration and
transnational labor; body rituals and body modification (from tattooing
and piercing to cosmetic surgery); reproductive rights; transgender,
intersex, and queer bodies; bodies and sports; bodies and religion;
military bodies; disciplining the bodies; imprisoned bodies; body
economics; bodily knowledge; the body in virtual spaces; students as
bodies; language of genetics in discussion of bodies; bodies as
biological entities; bionic bodies; online communities (icons and
avatars).
Send a hard copy in MLA format (6th ed.): Jacqueline Ellis and Edvige
Giunta, Editors, Transformations, New Jersey City University, Hepburn
Hall Room 309, 2039 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07305 OR email
submissions and inquiries to: transformations@njcu.edu. Email
submissions should be sent as attachments in MS Word or Rich Text
format. For submission
guidelines go to www.njcu.edu/assoc/transformations.
Deadline: 31 March 2008
Published semi-annually by New Jersey City University
Boy did we talk. This was one of the most interesting sessions on HETs that I’ve been involved with. Viva design-/(art)
