[spectre] Final Call: Futuresonic Conference - The Social

[Inke Arns]

From: Drew Hemment <drew at futuresonic.com>
Subject: Final Call: Futuresonic Conference - The Social
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:04:13 +0000


REMINDER: CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

18th December 2007, 5pm - Conference deadline


CONFERENCE THEME & CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
THE SOCIAL - ONLINE, MOBILE AND UNPLUGGED SOCIAL NETWORKING

Futuresonic 2008
Urban Festival of Art, Music & Ideas
1-4 May, Manchester, UK

The Futuresonic international conference and the 
Social Technologies Summit invite proposals for 
talks, presentations, workshops and session 
themes. Submissions of innovative formats for 
social interaction are encouraged.

The conference theme is The Social - Online, 
Mobile and Unplugged Social Networking.

Deadline for conference submissions -- 5pm 18th December 2007

http://www.futuresonic.com/submissions-conference

See also -- A GBP 5000 commission plus many other opportunities are available
in the Futuresonic 2008 Art, Music & EVNTS calls for submissions.

http://www.futuresonic.com/getinvolved


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THE CONFERENCE
Thurs 1 and Fri 2 May, plus linked events throughout the festival weekend

Futuresonic brings 500 opinion formers, 
futurologists, artists, technologists and 
scientists from the digital culture, music and 
art communities to Manchester for five days of 
seminars, workshops and events, with the 
internationally-acclaimed Futuresonic conference 
focused on Thursday 1 and Friday 2 May.

The Futuresonic conference has prefigured new 
trends and is a place where important 
international discussions take place.

Open and participatory sessions will be combined 
with keynotes and panel discussions, promising a 
fun and engaging number of days.

Alongside key people from the Social Software 
firmament will be Richard Stallman, founder of 
the Free Software movement, plus leading figures 
representing different viewpoints on the Social 
theme, plugged and unplugged. Visit and explore a 
range of social spaces, including online worlds, 
software environments, and the contemporary city.

http://www.futuresonic.com/submissions-conference


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CONFERENCE THEME
THE SOCIAL - ONLINE, MOBILE AND UNPLUGGED SOCIAL NETWORKING

40 years after people took to the streets of 
Paris in 1968 calling for society to be 
abolished, join us as we go in search of the 
social today.

Submissions are invited that explore the new 
social spaces and the social implications of 
technologies for the many different kinds of 
people who make, use and are affected by them. 
Presentations might look at the implications of 
specific technologies, or address broader themes.

Today we can occupy many different social spaces 
at once. Social software, online worlds, and the 
internet itself create an extension of social 
space, and new ways for people to find the stuff 
that interests them, link up with others, and 
share. Computers have become social interfaces 
for sharing digital media and collaborating to 
build online communities and folksonomies.

The conference will explore how we can rethink 
different social spaces, remake cities, or 
intervene in the forces, inequities and 
inequalities that shape society. In all parts of 
the globe people are seeking to open up or hold 
onto places to meet and communicate freely, 
online and offline. In India we see emergent 
kinds of community media, in South Korea new 
social uses of the mobile internet, and in Brazil 
the spread of 'cultural hotspots'.

Some technologies are more social than others. 
Social technologies are bottom up and 
many-to-many instead of one-to-one or 
one-to-many. They can include technologies 
created and maintained by social networks, such 
as communities of developers and users working 
collaboratively with open source tools.

But at the same time we see how electronic 
communication can isolate us, as more and more 
people drown in a deluge of email that generates 
stress, even reducing IQ. Additionally, 'online 
communities' are based upon an artificial 
equivalence between 'users' which obscures power 
relationships and issues of ownership.

The conference will bring together leading 
figures to broaden the debate on the Social 
today, and propose and explore a critical 
understanding of social technologies.

The theme of Futuresonic 2008's Art strand is 
Social Networking Unplugged. It will be 
"unplugged" in a number of ways. There will be 
artworks involving offline (or unplugged) 
collaborative social experience and face to face 
social interaction. Other projects will look at 
who is excluded and left out of the loop of Web 
2.0, and so "unplugged" in another way. Also 
there is the sense of pulling out the plug in 
order to take the new social spaces apart, see 
how they work, and put them together in new ways.

Web 2.0...
I take part
you take part
he takes part
we take part
you all take part
they profit.
(Slogan from Paris '68, remixed)

Digital culture burns bright with a vision of 
being not in isolation but in groups, placing the 
relations between people first. Beyond the hype 
lies ever greater isolation and conformity. Join 
us as we go in search of the social.

http://www.futuresonic.com/submissions-conference


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FINAL CALL FOR CONFERENCE SUBMISSIONS

Futuresonic now invites submissions to the 
Futuresonic conference and the Social 
Technologies Summit.

Proposals for talks, presentations and workshops 
plus also session themes are invited. Submissions 
of innovative formats for social interaction are 
encouraged.

Deadline for conference submissions -- 5pm 18th December 2007

For details on submitting to the conference visit
http://www.futuresonic.com/submissions-conference


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BOOKING INFORMATION

-- If you want to meet the creative thinkers, 
artists, programmers, digital media experts, 
scientists, industry specialists, hardware and 
software developers, marketers, political 
thinkers and activists

-- If you want to find out about new technologies 
and their impact on tomorrow's society

-- If you are looking for new and exciting ways 
to create, do business and interact

Then sign up early to the Futuresonic conference 
and the Social Technologies Summit.

A Delegate Registration Form can be downloaded 
from www.futuresonic.com/tickets/register.zip or 
by visiting www.futuresonic.com/tickets

Alternatively, email Your Name, Address and 
Contact Details to ideas2008 at futuresonic.com to 
receive full conference details and priority 
booking options.

CONFERENCE PASS

Early Bird Delegate Pass
GBP 60 (must be bought by February 1 2008)
Advance Delegate Pass
GBP 100
Delegate Pass (on the door)
GBP 150
Students/Concessions
GBP 30

Further discounts available for group bookings, 
for further details contact: 
ideas2008 at futuresonic.com

A limited number of pay-what-you-can Day Passes 
will be available on each day of the conference, 
for further details contact: 
ideas2008 at futuresonic.com

The Conference Pass includes access to all key festival events.


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FUTURESONIC 2008

Futuresonic has 4 strands: Art, Music, Ideas and 
EVNTS. Currently in its 12th year, the festival 
occupies the orbits of both music and digital 
culture.

A focus in recent years has been presenting 
artworks in unexpected city spaces, and on social 
art and social technologies.

Futuresonic now invites artists, thinkers and 
makers to get social and present new types of 
collaborative social experience at Futuresonic 
2008.

The Futuresonic festival theme is Social Networking Unplugged.

Join us as we go in search of the social today.

http://www.futuresonic.com

Futuresonic is supported by Arts Council England North West and
presented in association with Imagination at Lancaster.


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