[spectre] Transmediale 2015 CAPTURE ALL Call for Works / Deadline Reminder : 10 August 2014

[Daphne Dragona]

[apologies for cross postings]


transmediale 2015 CAPTURE ALL
Festival for Art & Digital Culture, Berlin 
28.01 - 01.02 2015 

Call For Works, Deadline 10 August, 2014
http://www.transmediale.de/content/transmediale-2015-capture-all

THEMATIC FRAMEWORK: CAPTURE ALL
In a society ruled by algorithms, data is always at play. The drive
towards the quantification of everything means that we are all
contributing to a state of permanent capture of life into data. As
citizens, workers and players of the networks we (often involuntarily)
double as sensors for bodies of global data collection, working for the
potential extraction of value everywhere and increasing the productivity
of everyday life. If work and leisure became mathematically manageable
data units for the assembly line production model of industrial
capitalism, today’s workers even offer their free time to the extent
that it serves a form of unaware labour facilitated by playful
technologies and game-like mechanics. Are there still modes of being
that resist the imperative of digital capitalism to CAPTURE ALL or is
there no option but to play along? If so, are there artistic strategies
and speculative approaches that do not play this game of quantification
by the numbers? What are the blind spots and gaps of relentless
quantification and gamification that can be exploited in order to carve
out new ways of living?

Flash crashes caused by out of control algorithms, imprecise “precision
strikes”, the unintended consequences of a badly interpreted meta-data,
the biometrics of a dog applied to a human being, the mismatch of work
and life: not only the productivity but also such evident dysfunctions
of the CAPTURE ALL society originate in the constant algorithmic
operation on data, in instant data-play and the illusion of boundless
control. Playful and participatory structures are purposefully used to
render personal information traceable, social relationships exploitable
and behavioral patterns recognizable. The events of the most recent past
instantly feed the datafied present and are used to predict a probable
future in an endless interpretation loop which is the founding principle
of a society of control hopelessly out of control.

transmediale 2015 sets out to push against the limits of digital
culture's pervasive logic of CAPTURE ALL and its quantification of life,
work and play. We are looking for artistic works, critical media
projects and speculative research that delimit modes of existence by
operating in and exploiting the blind spots of a datafied society. There
is always something in excess that bypasses normalization, even in the
most integrated processes of capture. Following this idea, transmediale
calls for artistic descriptions and actions that form pro-active
responses to phenomena like gamification, quantification and algorithmic
control and their ways of making the spheres of everyday life, work and
play increasingly indistinguishable. We welcome proposals for action and
(-de)constructive counter-action including miscalculation and
disproportioning, overidentification and obfuscation, metamodeling and
re-purposing, acceleration and exaggeration, de-gamification and
counter-gamification. We are seeking responses that outsmart and outplay
the logic of CAPTURE ALL and that organise more intimate modes of
post-digital life, work and play.

SUBMIT YOUR WORK
transmediale 2015 will take place from January 28 to February 1 at the
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. The programme will feature a
diversity of different types of work in a thematic exhibition as well as
film and video screenings, workshops, performances, and a conference
programme. transmediale is always interested in works exploring our
complex relation to technology, be it through new or old media.

Use our online submission form to submit your work. The final deadline
for handing in your submission is 10 August 2014. Please read our
conditions of entry closely before submitting your work.

http://www.transmediale.de/content/transmediale-2015-capture-all