Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 21:35:25 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPOON-ANN: CFP - Fibreculture Journal - Contagion and the Diseases of Information


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Call for Papers – the Fibreculture Journal – Contagion and the Diseases 
of Information, 2005
(please circulate) (please note that this is a different CFP to the 
recent FCJ CFP for a general issue)

http://journal.fibreculture.org/

:: fibreculture:: has established itself as Australasia's leading forum 
for discussion of internet theory, criticism, and research. The 
Fibreculture Journal is a peer reviewed journal that explores the 
issues and ideas of concern and interest to both the Fibreculture 
network and wider social formations.

Papers are invited for the ‘Contagion and the Diseases of Information’ 
Issue of the Fibreculture Journal, to be published in the first half of 
2005. This issue will be Guest Edited by Dr Andrew Goffey.

There are guidelines for the format and submission of contributions at 
http://journal.fibreculture.org <http://journal.fibreculture.org/> 
<http://journal.fibreculture.org/> . These guidelines need to be 
followed in all cases. Contributions should be sent electronically, as 
attachments, to Andrew Goffey at <aj_goffey-AT-hotmail.com> or < 
a.goffey-AT-mdx.ac.uk>. The deadline for submissions is August 31, 2004.

CONTAGION AND THE DISEASES OF INFORMATION

We suffer today from data-sickness, from the becoming-disease of 
information. The great epidemics of centuries past have been 
complemented by epidemics of signification propagated by media, the 
mimetic rivalries of desire are replaced by the replicating mechanisms 
of viral culture and the vampire of capital gives way to the parasite 
of empire. Are there any seeds for a new health, for creative 
potential, germs of resistance to be extracted from an ecology in which 
the divisions between nature and culture, matter and information, 
biological life and art are becoming indiscernible ?

Theoretical models for understanding this situation have been available 
for some time now:

In 1980, the philosopher of science, Michel Serres, proposed the 
parasite as an indissociably anthropological, biological and 
informational operator of interruptions in systems of exchange. Gilles 
Deleuze and Felix Guattari proposed contagion as the model for 
becomings which would disrupt the orderly lineage of filiation. Other 
theorists have proposed to extend the models of epidemiology to 
communication processes or to generalise the model of infection beyond 
its inscription in the life sciences.

* what are the practices, forces, movements exploring the parasitical 
disruptions of   generalised hyper-exchange or the deterritorialising 
potentials of information-contagion?

* What concrete explorations of vectors of infection are being explored 
by today's epidemiologists of media culture?

* What biopolitical strategies are emerging for the control and 
management - the restratification - of destratified information and the 
aberrant movements of decoded matter?

The Fibreculture Journal is looking for contributions exploring 
contemporary processes of contagion, parasitism, infection, mutation, 
replication, in media, technology, culture and art. The Fibreculture 
Journal is especially interested in contributions which explore the 
ambivalence and riskiness of these processes.