[spectre] OPEN CALL: {Techno} magic and crafting digital artifacts - 4S panel

[Afroditi Psarra]

Dear all,

We are writing to invite proposals for presentation to our combined format
open panel at the next 4S conference on the topic of {Techno} magic and
crafting digital artifacts.

Magic is a material and bodily practice deeply intertwined with labor,
resistance and social reproduction. In the context of historical
exploitative economic and political structures, magic was not merely
symbolic, but a form of embodied knowledge and practice that directly
resisted the rationalizing forces of early capitalism. {Techno}magic is
framed as an emergent field where ritualistic practices, talismans, sigils,
and other magical materia intersect with technologic artifacts, fostering
more-than-Western views and histories to enact knowledge construction and
relations of care through local networks and federated circles. This panel
explores how magic can guide the crafting of artifacts, tools and systems
that reconnect us to invisible realms—spiritual, emotional and communal––
through personal mythologies and speculative world-building.

We invite artists, designers, STS scholars, researchers and practitioners
to submit proposals for workshops, performances, and experimental practices
that expand on these ideas. How can digital technologies harness the
enchantment and transformative potential of magic? How can rituals rooted
in bodily practice shape new forms of technological interaction?
Submissions should aim to explore these questions through embodied,
participatory experiences, contributing to a growing discourse on
technology as a medium for the sacred.

We envision a combined open panel format which will include, but is not
limited to, academic paper presentations, hands-on activities such as
workshoping avatars as talismans, crafting hyper-local genAI as oracles,
playing with mystical alphabets or  ideating techno-mythical creatures.

Deadline for applications is January 31, 2025


To submit your proposal send a 250-word abstract through the 4S Call for
Open Panels: https://4sonline.org/call_for_open_panels_seattle.php


Our panel is number 173 entitled {Techno} magic and crafting digital
artifacts.


If you have any specific questions on the panel contact Afroditi Psarra at
apsarra at uw.edu


Photo credit: Sadaf Sadri


*Alt text: A digital human avatar wearing a black robe and a green
headpiece, divided in three vertical panels. The avatar is connected
through hair as tendrils to abstract figures of Islamic iconography. *
4S 2025 will take place in person in Seattle on September 3-7 Conference
Theme: Reverberations

To reverberate is to echo, to repeat, to transmit further, to convey.
Reverberations are also relays—wave-like, rolling, seismic or
subtle—between points in space and time, felt evidence of distant yet
interpenetrating events. In this sense, to reverberate is to exhibit a
strange kind of force—an infinite regress of effects perceived as causes
perceived as effects. For STS, reverberation figures science and technology
not only as an effect of myriad practices and multiple agencies but also as
normative sites where diverse politics and disparate struggles are
resounded, reworked, and—consequentially—reactivated.

We look forward to your proposals!


Please share widely with your networks!

Warmly,

Afroditi Psarra + Gabrielle Benabdallah + Sadaf Sadri
-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-...-
Afroditi Psarra, PhD
She/Her
Associate Professor, DXARTS
Adjunct Associate Professor, Design || CHID || HCDE
Donald E. Peterson Endowed Professor
University of Washington
http://afroditipsarra.com
http://dx-softlab.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://post.in-mind.de/pipermail/spectre/attachments/20250106/9b46df1d/attachment.html>