Tag: Digital Ecologies II: Fiction Machines

Programme for Digital Ecologies II: Fiction Machines

Digital Ecologies II: Fiction Machines

Tuesday 16 July, 2019
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Commons CM107 and 108
Bath Spa University
Newton Park, Newton St Loe, Bath, BA2 9BN

Programme Schedule

 

09:15 – 10:00                    Coffee and Registration                                CM.107/108

 

 

10:00 – 10:15                    Welcome and Introduction:
                        CM.107/108

Charlie Tweed (Bath Spa University)

 

 

10:15 – 11:00                    Keynote Lecture 1:                                           CM.107/108

Professor Simon O’Sullivan

 

Fictioning: Mythopoesis, Myth-Science and Mythotechnesis

 

                                           Chair: Charlie Tweed

 

 

 

11:00 – 12.35                    Panel 1: Activist Fictions                                 CM.107/108                        

 

Ami Clarke

covfefe – language in a meme economy

 

Ada Hao

NAUT-ADA: (m)other eye

 

John Wild

Psychogeography in the Digitally Expanded City

 

Alberto Micali

         The machinic conspiracies of data leaks

 

Chair: Ramon Bloomberg

 

 

 

12:35 – 13:30                    Lunch                                                                      Atrium   

                                        

Viewing of Rod Dickinson’s Fear Filter

 

 

13:30 – 13:45                    Performance: Ami Clarke                            Screening Room

       

        Error-Correction: an introduction to future diagrams (2010 –

ongoing) and Low Animal Spirits (2014).

 

 

 

13.45 – 15:00                    Panel 2: Non human Fictions                              CM107/108

 

Stephanie Moran and Alex Hogan

alien holobiontology: a collaborative multi-species eco-sci-fi

 

Jennet Thomas

ANIMAL CONDENSED>ANIMAL EXPANDED

 

Andy Weir

Call for a Geo-fictionalised Atomic Priesthood

 

 

                                Chair: Rebecca Smith

 

 

 

15.00 – 16:35                     Panel 3: Speculative Fictions (parallel)            CM.107/108                                                          

 

Hugh Frost

Mould Map EARTH PANTROPY: Near Future

Visions in Sequential Digital Art.

 

Garfield Benjamin

Human-DEcentred design: Speculative

fiction, design and ethics for a future after   humanity

 

Teodora Sinziana Fartan

Reframing Futures: Speculative Strands and Fictions from an Uneven Aftertime

 

 

Chair: Andy Weir

______________________________________________________________

 

 

15.00 – 16:35                     Panel 4: Post Truth Fictions                      CM.111

                                        (parallel)

 

Maud Craigie

Bad Evidence: The Fictions of Interrogation

 

Michelle Atherton

Repository of Irrational Gestures (RIG’s):

A Performative Lecture/Screening

 

 

Rebecca Smith

Parafictions and Contemporary Art 2008-2018

 

 

Ramon Bloomberg

Facial Fictions: Identity and Recognition in the

                              Smart-City

 

 

Chair: Ami Clarke

 

 

 

16:45 –17.30                     Keynote Lecture 2                                            CM.107/108

 

Tony David Sampson

 

Feeling Facts and Fakes in the Speculative Contagion of  Shock Events

 

 

Chair: Charlie Tweed

 

 

 

17.30                               Wine Reception                                                      CM.107/108

 

 

17:45 – 18.30                   Final Performances & films                               CM.107/108

        

        Performances

 

 

        Harry Meadows and Andy Weir

       

        SPECIFICITIES OF THE PLANETARY ROOM

      

       Screenings

 

                                     Charlie Tweed

       Oporavak

 

       Bjørn Erik Haugen

                                       The Pen is mightier than the Word

 

Website

END

 

Digital Ecologies II: Fiction Machines (one day symposium)

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Professor Simon O’Sullivan, Professor of art, theory and practice,
Goldsmiths College, London

Dr Tony David-Sampson, Reader in Digital Media Culture and Communication, University of East London

Other Confirmed Participants include:

Ami Clarke, Jennet Thomas, Rod Dickinson, Charlie Tweed, Andy Weir, Harry Meadows, Ada Hao, Ramon Bloomberg, Bjørn erik Haugen, Hugh Frost, Annabelle Craven-Jones, Monika Oechsler, Garfield Benjamin, John Wild, Alberto Micali, Maud Craigie, Michelle Atherton, Rebecca Smith, Stephanie Moran and Alex Hogan and Teodora Fartan.

The Centre for Media Research at Bath Spa University is proud to host the second Digital Ecologies symposium: Fiction Machines and it will take place on Tuesday July 16th 2019.

In the introduction to his book Fiction as Method (2017) Jon K Shaw identifies a fictional place called ‘Null Island’, a fiction that is located at a point in the centre of the earth, amongst the lava that no one can travel to.

‘From this unreal centre the machines can tag our photos to map our memories and images onto the material world, can align our satellites to coordinate and connect us across the planet. Whenever we perform one of these actions, we pass through this fiction. We are transported home via the fictional island.’ (Shaw, 2017: 7)

Our vision of the earth and of each other is increasingly filtered through the operations of a complex assemblage of networked computational writing machines and as Shaw implies, these exist at the centre of our world and our daily experience. As a result the planet itself is increasingly becoming computational, Nigel Thrift describes how the ‘real’ as we know it is the result of multiple simultaneous ‘writing machines’ using a continuous looping process of algorithms. (2005, loc.2879)

As a result, humans now exist within complex informational spaces that produce affects, simulate, analyse and respond to user and environmental data. Within these conditions, fiction and reality become increasingly blurred, machine and human voice, difficult to distinguish.

These machines allow for the generation of complex webs of fabulation which exist in a plethora of contexts from corporate identities to labyrinthine brand stories, to political propaganda and the operations of the derivatives market.

Furthermore our understanding of the ecological is itself increasingly filtered through multiple layers of networked technologies, sensors, algorithms and data visualisations. Jennifer Gabrys discusses the notion of ‘planetary scale computerisation’ and how this leads to the generation of ‘new living conditions, subjectivities, and imaginaries’. (Gabrys, 2016)

Within this context new fictional strategies within creative practice emerge as important weapons for critique, intervention, speculation and change. As Simon O’Sullivan notes: fiction can be used not as a matter of ‘make believe but rather in a Ranciere sense of forging the real to better approximate historical and contemporary experience’. (O’Sullivan, 2016: 6)

In the symposium we ask how fictional methods are being employed to rethink and renegotiate our relationship with current and future technologies; how such methods can be used from activist and political perspectives; how they can address and critique post-truth conditions; how they can reveal forgotten histories and non-human perspectives; and how they can be used to speculate on, and design, new futures.

As Benjamin Bratton notes: ‘Our shared design project will require both different relationships to machines (carbon based machines and otherwise) and a more promiscuous figurative imagination.’ (Bratton, 2016, loc.283)

Symposium Strands:

• Activist fictions

• Speculative design fictions

• Non-human fictions

• Post-truth fictions

• Machinic fictions

The event will culminate with a series of performances by artists including: Ami Clarke, Harry Meadows & Andy Weir, and Annabelle Craven-Jones.

Throughout the event artist Rod Dickinson’s project Fear Filter will feed images to our Media Wall.

TICKETS:

Tickets are now available from the link below and include lunch, coffee and wine reception, with a special discount for students.

https://www.bathspalive.com/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=C7EA82EC-2FD7-4C2F-BF0B-CC1AE4A4584D&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=D70272D5-9DE8-48B8-A750-A8AB1D88536E

Digital Ecologies II: Fiction Machines

Digital Ecologies II: Fiction Machines has a website with cfp and submission details. See here: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk//news-and-events/events/digital-ecologies-ii/

Digital Ecologies II: Fiction Machines

Tuesday 16 July, 2019
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
The Centre for Media Research
Bath Spa University
Newton Park, Newton St Loe, Bath, BA2 9BN

Keynote speakers

  • Professor Simon O’Sullivan, Professor of Art, Theory and Practice, Goldsmiths College, London
  • Dr Tony David-Sampson, Reader in Digital Media Culture and Communication, University of East London

Call for papers

In the introduction to his book Fiction as Method (2017) Jon K Shaw identifies a fictional place called ‘Null Island’, a fiction that is located at a point in the centre of the earth where no one can travel to, set amongst the lava.

“From this unreal centre the machines can tag our photos to map our memories and images onto the material world, can align our satellites to coordinate and connect us across the planet. Whenever we perform one of these actions, we pass through this fiction. We are transported home via the fictional island.”

Our vision of the earth and of each other is increasingly filtered through the operations of a complex assemblage of networked computational writing machines and, as Shaw implies, these exist at the centre of our world and our daily experience. As a result the planet itself is increasingly becoming computational, Nigel Thrift describes how the ‘real’ as we know it is the result of multiple simultaneous ‘writing machines’ using a continuous looping process of algorithms.

Humans now exist within complex informational spaces that produce affects, simulate, analyse and respond to user and environmental data. Within these conditions fiction and reality become increasingly blurred, machine and human voices difficult to distinguish.

These machines allow for the generation of complex webs of fabulation which exist in a plethora of contexts from corporate identities to labyrinthine brand stories, to political propaganda and the operations of the derivatives market.

Furthermore our understanding of the ecological is itself increasingly filtered through multiple layers of networked technologies, sensors, algorithms and data visualisations. Jennifer Gabrys discusses the notion of ‘planetary scale computerisation’ and how this leads to the generation of ‘new living conditions, subjectivities, and imaginaries’. (Gabrys, 2016)

Within this context new fictional strategies within creative practice emerge as important weapons for critique, intervention, speculation and change. As Simon O’Sullivan notes: fiction can be used not as a matter of ‘make believe’ but rather in a Ranciere sense of forging the real to better approximate historical and contemporary experience.

In the symposium we ask how fictional methods are being employed to rethink and renegotiate our relationship with current and future technologies; how such methods can be used from activist and political perspectives; how they can address and critique post-truth conditions; how they can reveal forgotten histories and non-human perspectives; and how they can be used to speculate on, and design, new futures.

As Benjamin Bratton notes: ‘Our shared design project will require both different relationships to machines (carbon based machines and otherwise) and a more promiscuous figurative imagination.’

We are interested in submissions from interdisciplinary researchers including artists, filmmakers, writers, geographers, scientists and theorists whose work connects with the themes of the symposium or the below listed research strands.

Symposium strands

  1. Activist fictions – responses that employ fiction as a political or social method for recuperation/change/intervention
  2. Speculative design fictions – responses that utilise fiction to reimagine social, environmental and technological futures
  3. Non-human fictions – responses that employ fiction to bring non-human perspectives and voices into view
  4. Post-truth – responses that critique and subvert the mechanisms and mediation of post-truth.

 

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Digital Ecologies II: Fiction Machines

Expect much fabulating, speculating and recuperating…

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Digital Ecologies II: Fiction Machines

One-Day International Symposium: Tuesday July 16th 2019

The Centre for Media Research, Bath Spa University, Newton Park, Newton St Loe, Bath, BA2 9BN

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Professor Simon O’Sullivan, Professor of art, theory and practice,

Goldsmiths College, London

Dr Tony David-Sampson, Reader in Digital Media Culture and Communication, University of East London

The Centre for Media Research at Bath Spa University is proud to host the second Digital Ecologies symposium: Fiction Machines and it will take place on Tuesday July 16th 2019. We are interested in submissions from interdisciplinary researchers including artists, filmmakers, writers, geographers, scientists and theorists whose work connects with the themes of the symposium.

In the introduction to his book Fiction as Method (2017) Jon K Shaw identifies a fictional place called ‘Null Island’, a fiction that is located at a point in the centre of the earth, amongst the lava that no one can travel to.

‘From this unreal centre the machines can tag our photos to map our memories and images onto the material world, can align our satellites to coordinate and connect us across the planet. Whenever we perform one of these actions, we pass through this fiction. We are transported home via the fictional island.’ (Shaw, 2017: 7)

Our vision of the earth and of each other is increasingly filtered through the operations of a complex assemblage of networked computational writing machines and as Shaw implies, these exist at the centre of our world and our daily experience. As a result the planet itself is increasingly becoming computational, Nigel Thrift describes how the ‘real’ as we know it is the result of multiple simultaneous ‘writing machines’ using a continuous looping process of algorithms. (2005, loc.2879)

Humans now exist within complex informational spaces that produce affects, simulate, analyse and respond to user and environmental data. Within these conditions fiction and reality become increasingly blurred, machine and human voices difficult to distinguish.

These machines allow for the generation of complex webs of fabulation which exist in a plethora of contexts from corporate identities to labyrinthine brand stories, to political propaganda and the operations of the derivatives market.

Furthermore our understanding of the ecological is itself increasingly filtered through multiple layers of networked technologies, sensors, algorithms and data visualisations. Jennifer Gabrys discusses the notion of ‘planetary scale computerisation’ and how this leads to the generation of ‘new living conditions, subjectivities, and imaginaries’. (Gabrys, 2016)

Within this context new fictional strategies within creative practice emerge as important weapons for critique, intervention, speculation and change. As Simon O’Sullivan notes:  fiction can be used not as a matter of ‘make believe’ but rather in a Ranciere sense of forging the real to better approximate historical and contemporary experience. (O’Sullivan, 2016: 6)

In the symposium we ask how these fictional methods are being employed to rethink and renegotiate our relationship with current and future technologies; how fiction can be used to reveal forgotten histories, non-human perspectives and to speculate on, and design, new futures.

As Bratton notes: ‘Our shared design project will require both different relationships to machines (carbon based machines and otherwise) and a more promiscuous figurative imagination.’ (Bratton, 2016, loc.283)

Symposium Strands:

(i) Activist fictions: responses that employ fiction as a political or social method for recuperation/change/intervention.

(ii) Speculative design fictions: responses that utilise fiction to reimagine social, environmental and technological futures.

(iii) Non-human fictions – responses that employ fiction to bring non-human perspectives and voices into view.

(iv)  Post-truth: responses that critique and subvert the mechanisms and mediation of post-truth.

Proposal Submission

We encourage proposals for practice based presentations and traditional papers as well as performance lectures. The duration for each paper should be 20 minutes. Please send proposals (300 words approx.) for all papers – outlining their aim and form – along with a short biography to the symposium coordinator: Dr Charlie Tweed (c.tweed@bathspa.ac.uk) by no later than Friday March 1st, 2019.