[rohrpost] Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep? // Arse Elektronika 2008 / Call For Papers

[das ende der nahrungskette]

Arse Elektronika 2008: Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?
Call for Papers

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ARSE ELEKTRONIKA 2008
Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?
Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and 
Social Fiction

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Taking up where the successful conference in autumn 2007 left off, 
this year's Arse Elektronika stands under the motto "future" -- and 
the ways in which the present sees itself reflected in it. 
Maintaining a broadened perspective on technical development and 
technology while also putting special emphasis on its social 
implementation, this year's conference focuses on Science and Social Fiction.

The genre of the "fantastic" is especially well suited to the 
investigation of the touchy area of sexuality and pornography: actual 
and assumed developments are frequently depicted positively and 
approvingly, but just as often with dystopian admonishment. Here the 
classic, and continuingly valid, themes of modernism represent a 
clear link between the two aspects: questions of science, research 
and technologization are of interest, as is the complex surrounding 
urbanism, artificiality and control (or the loss of control). 
Depictions of the future, irregardless of the form they take, always 
address the present as well. Imaginations of the fantastic and the 
nightmarish give rise to a thematic overlapping of the exotic, the 
alienating and, of course, the pornographic/sexual as well.

In order to intelligently contextualize the abundance of queries that 
are involved here, this year's conference will be structured around 
three day-long discussion panels, each devoted to a specific theme. 
The impossibility of fitting many of these issues and relationships 
into such neat categorizations is not only accepted, but also encouraged.

Panel 1: Narration
Narrative positions and narrative media are closely linked in the 
treatment of the sexual and the pornographic. In the area of 
fantasization and its great variety of media differentiations (film, 
literature, computer games, etc.) this fundamental phenomenon is also 
expanded through the facet of a highly influential fan fiction. 
Submissions for this panel should deal e.g. with specific aspects of 
individual media, media complexes, distribution or reception.

Panel 2: Technology
Sexuality and pornography are manifestations of a social reality and 
are directly linked to questions of technological innovation, whereby 
fantasizing can also function as a motor of innovation. Submissions 
for this panel should deal e.g. with the present and future of 
technological developments, with social-technological aspects (e.g. 
space travel, plastic surgery, etc.) or with conditions of 
technologically driven development.

Panel 3: Politics
Science (and social) fiction, sexuality and pornography are often 
infused with colonialization strategies, conceptions of social norms 
and political strategies. Here the utopian, the dystopian and the 
xenophobic are mixed into a dangerous and interpretationally potent 
concoction. Submissions to this panel should deal with e.g. the 
juridification of the body, biopolitical standardization processes, 
political systems of domination and taboos surrounding interracial sex.

Submission requirements:

The 1-2 page submission, written in English, should be thematically 
oriented toward one of the three discussion panels. It should contain 
clear information regarding the methodology and up-to-dateness of the 
thesis it puts forth and detail the technical equipment required for 
the lecture's delivery. Submissions should be mailed to arse2008 AT 
monochrom.at no later than 2 May 2008. Organizational considerations 
make it impossible to take into account submissions received after this date.

Each participant's written lecture notes should reach the organizers 
no later than 15 September 2008, the version for publication in the 
proceedings of the symposium by 15 November 2008.

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http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/

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