Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 20:25:44 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPOON-ANN: Powering Up/Powering Down:  Call for Proposals


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CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

CALL FOR ARTWORK, PERFORMANCES, INSTALLATIONS


"Powering Up/Powering Down"

Jan. 28-Feb. 1, 2004

A festival/colloquium/opera of radical arts
technologies organized by TEKNIKA RADICA.

TEKNIKA RADICA is now accepting proposals for an
interdisciplinary colloquium investigating arts
technologies and received histories.  Powering
Up/Powering Down will take place on the campus of UC
San Diego and surrounding venues in San Diego and
Tijuana. For 3 days artists, musicians, writers and
scholars of diverse backgrounds will collaborate on a
living laboratory-opera through their individual
contributions and the exchanges they ignite.
Contributors include Maryanne Amacher, Ron Athey,
Sharon Daniel, Johanna Fateman (Le Tigre), DJ Kuttin
Kandi, George Lipsitz, Los Cybrids, Lisa Nakamura,
Pauline Oliveros, Pat Payne, and T. Kim-Trang Tran,
among many more.


Powering Up/Powering Down

Powering Up: As artists and thinkers whose creative
work and discourse are made possible by technologies
(digital, analog, bodily, systematic), we believe it
is imperative to think critically about the social
implications of the ways in which we use these tools.
We are accustomed to thinking critically about the
social implications embedded in the resultant art- and
thought-works, but we do not often interrogate our
work from the perspective of the material culture that
enables, and to a greater or lesser extent, determines
it. Howard Becker's notion of artworlds brings the
complex of factors that combine to produce an
artwork into play.

We examine technological factors in the arts because
'technology' is our most pervasive 21st-century
metaphor; because the tools we use add their own
dimensions to our artworks; and because, while we
shape our tools as needed, they also shape us.

Hacking In: "In the micro-particles created by the
non-linear relation and friction between needle and
vinyl lounges the cyborg." Our investigation must
include the indissolubly double nature of the
denizens of the cyborg world, the symbiosis of haves
and have-nots. All "users" are not created equal. Who
are we as cyborgs, as technologically-enhanced and
-shaped beings? How has the explosion of tech use in
the arts affected creative work and artistic output?
Do technologies blur boundaries between "art" and other
kinds of work? Who are the "others" existing outside
this technically-enhanced world, and why have we/they
been left behind? What is the relation of the
technological "black box" to gender, race, sexual
orientation and economic status? Do different
people(s) conceive or use technologies in different
ways? Is technological art able to point to ways in
which technologies may be used creatively to address
or subvert traditional power hierarchies?

Planting the Virus: Teknika Radica is
engineering/choreographing/directing a 3-day series of
concerts, exhibitions, panels and workshops in San
Diego, titled Powering Up/Powering Down. Within this
living laboratory, scholars and artists will
interactively explore critical and creative responses
to issues of inclusion, interface and identity in arts
technologies. We are especially interested in uses of
technology, which challenge conceptual polarities and
implicit power hierarchies such as white/racialized,
male/female, high/low culture and machine/body; which
analyze social identities; and which circumvent
structural limitations on access to knowledge and
equipment.

We invite you to propose your presentations,
performances, installations/objects, and workshops
that challenge conceptual polarities
(white/racialized, male/female, high/low tech,
machine/body) and that outwit limitations on access
to knowledge, resources and equipment.  We welcome
performances and objects/installations in any medium
or combination of media, as well as scholarly papers,
panel proposals, workshops and skill-shares.

Proposals should do one or a combination of the
following:

*        Critically and creatively respond to issues
of interface and identity in arts technologies;

*        Challenge traditional conceptual polarities
(white/racialized, male/female, high/low tech,
machine/body);

*        Address structural limitations on access to
knowledge and equipment (class-based, race-based,
gender-based);

*        Make use of appropriated technology:
alternative uses and creative alterations of standard
technologies.

Please submit proposals by November 14, 2003. The
abstract should give a working title and clearly
indicate its relevance to the colloquium
theme.

*        If proposing a paper or workshop, the
abstract should be no longer than 250 words.

*        If proposing media, examples should not
exceed 5 minutes and be accompanied with an abstract
no longer than 150 words.

*        Please include a cover sheet with your name,
affiliation (if any), address, email address and phone
number. If proposing a panel, please give pertinent
information for all participants in the panel.
Selections will be announced by November 30, 2003.


Send your proposal to:


TEKNIKA RADICA


Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA)

University of California, San Diego

9500 Gilman Ave. Dr. 0037

La Jolla, CA 92102-0037



TEKNIKA RADICA is a coalition of artists, writers,
scholars and musicians promoting radical engagement
with technology in the arts. We curate events that
examine the ways in which we think about and use
technology, specifically how race, gender, sexuality
and class may be organized, encoded - or subverted -
in relation to social power and access to resources.

For more information, please contact Juliana Snapper
(juliana-AT-teknikaradica.org).