MAKING SENSE

An international, multi-disciplinary colloquium 25/09/2009: MAKING SENSE
At this colloquium we will bring the artist, curator and philosopher together, through the medium of academia, with the intent of finding new ways to frame and develop discourse. We want to create a common language that expresses how we can make sense of the world today, through the creation and reception of contemporary art. We intend this conference to bring together key players from the world of art, aesthetic philosophy and contemporary theory, in a way that can provide 'live' source material for debate and research, and so create an interface for new thought. Our main speakers secured for this event are the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and the French installation artist Sophie Calle. Our slogan MAKING SENSE begins from an explicitly Nancean thesis, and intends to mobilise the contemporary aesthetic theory and 'sense' of Jean-Luc Nancy, in relation to current works of art, and how they are shown to us by curatorial practice. The intent is to apply a theoretical debate about sense to a contemporary praxis that can 'make sense', as developed through what we can see from contemporary art, and how we actually see it. -- The Colloquium itself will take place at The Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages, The University of Cambridge, 25th September, 2009. Contact details: MAKING SENSE - call for participation: Rather than formal papers being presented in closed 20-minute slots, this colloquium is an experimental forum that encourages reaction and debate. The format of the event will be choreographed around presentations from and responses to the plenary speakers, shorter bursts of ideas that respond to the questions raised below, and artistic installation and performance. We will produce a new form of creative academic scholarship. Closing date for proposals: February 15, 2009.
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CFP: Foreignness and Translation in New Media

Call for Papers media-N spring edition, 2009

Theme:Foreignness and Translation in New Media.

Guest Editor for this special issue is Pat Badani, Assistant Professor, Integrated Media, at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, U.S.A.

This issue will deal with the relationship between foreignness and translation in new media. We look forward to a discussion on the idea of foreignness seen as an investigation surrounding notions of travel, displacement and migration beyond those tied to the geographical movement of populations.

We are interested in the broad practice of translation in new media, in the use of an electronic system that mediates and enables the movement from one state to another. We also welcome submissions exploring the specific notion of cultural translation and migration in new media. That is to say, we are interested in a discussion on cultural markers that are displaced into foreign and extraneous locations, languages, supports and genres.

This issue expands the debate initiated during the Colloquium Foreigners in Art and Technology held at Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Buenos Aires, Argentina (August 12 & 13, 2008).

The scope of this issue is double: theoretical and practical. We welcome submissions on critical thinking and studio practices. Artists and theorists are invited to discuss their artwork and/or critical thinking in this area.
Please submit via email to: Pat Badani at pbadaniilstuedu

Deadline: February 14, 2009

Event reviews:The editorial board also invites proposals for reviews of exhibitions, events, festivals, conferences, etc. See examples of reviews in the current issue.

[·] Media-N author's agreement is available from the Copyright Statement.

[·] Send manuscripts via email to: Rachel Clarke, Editor in Chief (rclarkecsusedu)

Mapping Architectural Controversies (MAC)

Mapping Architectural Controversies (MAC) is an interactive website dedicated to students and researchers working on controversies surrounding design projects, buildings, master plans, and urban and development issues. Documenting and visualising recent controversies in architecture, it also aims to address a broader audience interested in the design of cities, spatial networks and built environments as well as planners, representatives of city government, NGOs and citizens. As it is a part of the EU-funded project MACOSPOL, Mapping Architectural Controversies draws on a variety of documental sources and visual methods to explore the multifarious connections of architecture and society.

MAC comprises a research method, a teaching philosophy and a way to approach public debates. The platform serves as a database on controversies related to a variety of topics from Science, Technology, Innovation, Design and Urban Planning, provides tutorial guidance to the Mapping Controversies teaching and learning methods and their relevance to architectural studies, and showcases some initiatives in enhancing the public understanding of controversies.

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Two lectures

Designing indistinct systems: theory and practice of transdisciplinary research
Rolf Hughes and Ronald Jones
Experience Design Group, Deprtment of Interdisciplinary Studies, Konstfack

The aim of the workshop is to compare the claims made for, through and in artistic research to those promised by transdisciplinary research methodologies. Rolf Hughes will introduce the core concepts of practice-based research and discuss whether these are rapidly becoming institutional “orthodoxies”. Ronald Jones will then present an introduction to transdisciplinary premises and potentialities. Rolf Hughes will then provide a theoretical framing of disciplinary logics such as “borders”, “edges”, “material” and substance”, relating such theoretical concepts to a methodology we are developing at the Experience Design group (EDG) around trandsisciplinary research in practice. Ronald Jones will conclude the presentation with a discussion of existing transdisciplinary case studies in research and in artistic practice, including a new EDG research project funded by the Swedish Knoweldge Foundation (KK-Stiftelsen) on the theme Experience Design: The Future of Play.

13.00 8th December, Svarta Havet


DESIGN ME A TOASTER
Ronald Jones
Experience Design Group, Konstfack

The creative disciplines are undergoing the most significant paradigm shift in living memory prompting substantial adjustments to the core-values at some university art, design and architecture programs. As a result, a few of the most advanced programs in the world are educating designers, artists and architects with one goal: to make optimal impact in bringing rapid change to increasingly complex problems to give their graduates greater reach, responsibility, influence and relevance.

15.00 9th December, Svarta Havet

Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice

Seminar

Saturday 6 December
1 pm – late (exhibition open from 11am)
Venue: Konstnärsnämnden, Maria Skolgata 83, Stockholm
Free entrance, pre-registration only (limited availability): osa@iaspis.se
Language: English
Bar with food and drinks


Welcome to Iaspis seminar on design and critical practice!

Participants: Julia Born; Mia Frostner, Robert Sollis, Paul Tisdell, Europa; James Goggin, Practice; Emily King; Zak Kyes; Armand Mevis, Mevis en van Deursen; Nille Svensson, Sweden Graphics
+ Ramia Mazé; Sara Kristoffersson; Jonas Williamsson, Reala; Martin Frostner; Magnus Ericson, Iaspis


Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice comprises an exhibition, a seminar and a forthcoming publication on investigative, speculative and critical design practice.

What constitutes a critical approach in graphic design? What kind of strategies and methods are used by the practitioners in this field? What external conditions influence this kind of practice? What is the relation between critical practices in design, architecture and art?

Iaspis brings together several critical voices in contemporary graphic design, including Forms of Inquiry contributors, as well as curators, critics, and educators to discuss these issues, based on topics investigated within Forms of Inquiry and a set of conversations initiated for the seminar and the publication. Through an open format and a series of lectures, conversations and debates, the seminar aims to further discuss the importance and position of investigative, speculative and critical design practice.

As a manifestation, Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice intends to facilitate international exchange of ideas and knowledge within an expanded field of design. It aims to be a space for reflection and debate and to inspire to further studies, exchange and actions within the field of design, architecture and art. The reader will be co-published in 2009 by Iaspis and Sternberg Press.


Program Saturday 6 December

The seminar starts at 1 pm and continues until approximately 10pm. In the Project Room and Studio at Iaspis. The program includes breaks. You are free to decide what parts of the program you would like to attend (doors will be open). Coffee, tea, food and drinks will be served from the bar (Please note, cash only). Limited availability, pre-registration only.


1pm Introduction
by Magnus Ericson, Project Manager Iaspis, Jonas Williamson, Martin Frostner and Moderator Emily King

1.30pm Zak Kyes
Lecture on the exhibition Forms of Inquiry: the Architecture of Critical Graphic design

2.30pm Julia Born
Lecture on Secret Instructions and This Side Up, and her collaboration with the Swiss performance artist Alexandra Bachzetsis

Break

4pm James Goggin, Practice
Lecture on historical precedents of self-initiation and publishing in graphic design

5pm James Goggin, Practice och Mia Frostner, Robert Sollis, Paul Tisdell; Europa
Conversation where Europa and Practise compare contemporary interpretations of ‘relational design’.-- both as strategy and as something already inherent -- with their own graphic design practices

6pm Armand Mevis, Mevis en van Deursen
Lecture: Simple ideas, easy work! On Mevis en van Deursen practice and projects such as the identity for Museum Boijmans van Beuningen etc.

Break (food and drinks are available from the bar)

8pm Nille Svensson, Sweden Graphics
A conversation with Emily King about design and ideology

9pm Reflections + Open discussion
Sara Kristofferson, Ramia Mazé and others

Bar


Iaspis
The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s international program for visual artists

Konstnärsnämnden
Maria Skolgata 83
118 53 Stockholm
Sweden
Tel: +46 (0) 8-50 65 50 00
http://www.iaspis.com

THIS FORM FOLLOWS YOUR PERFORMANCE

Alex Schweder
THIS FORM FOLLOWS YOUR PERFORMANCE

The relationship between occupied spaces and occupying bodies is a shifting one; we subjectively make our built world; thereafter it constructs us as occupying subjects. Working at the intersection of art and architecture, I understand our built environment as a site for playing out fantasies about our bodies. Drawing from a history of buildings designed around perfect bodies, my work seeks to expand this discourse to the experience of lived fleshy bodies. Architecture does not often pose difficult questions to its occupying bodies; art does not often publicly explore uncomfortable topics outside of museums and private spaces. However, at their intersection art and architecture might more productively explore the complicated facets of being human.

Speaker: Alex Schweder is the 2005–2006 Rome Prize Fellow in Architecture. Since this time, Schweder has been experimenting with time and performance based architecture including Flatland at New York's Sculpture Center 2007, This Apple Tastes Like Our Living Room Used to Smell presented at Western Bridge in Seattle 2007, Melting Instructions presented at the Tacoma Art Museum 2007, Homing MacGuffin during New York's Homebase III project 2008, The End of Endless to be presented at the Santa Fe Center For Contemporary Art 2009, and A Sac of Rooms All Day Long to be shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 2009. His work has also been exhibited nationally and internationally including Henry Urbach Architecture in New York, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Netherlands Architecture Institute, and the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma. Schweder is the author of 'Stalls Between Walls', in Ladies and Gents, the Gendering of Public Toilets. He is a three time artist in residence at the Kohler company and will be in residence at the Chinati Foundation in Fall of 09. Schweder has been a guest professor at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in the Fall 07 for the seminar How to Perform Your Own Building. He holds a Masters in Architecture from Princeton University (1998) and a Bachelor in Architecture from Pratt Institute (1993).

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TEXTURES

6th European Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA ),
1st conference of the SLSA-EU, the European sister organization of the SLSA

Place and dates Riga/Liepaja (Latvia), 15-20 June, 2010
Main organizer Electronic Text + Textiles (e-t+t )
Venues Main site for the academic programme, reception, lunches:
The Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE)
Other conference sites:
e-t+t; Latvian Centre for Contemporary Arts; Riga City Art Space (t.b.c.), Art Lab, University of Liepaja
Theme The SLSA-EU 2010 conference is dedicated to exploring fabrics, structures, surfaces, and interfaces in a world that has been transformed to a large extent through technoscience and networked media. This transformed world is highly textured, partly through verbal and non-verbal 'texts' but also by mixtures of human-made and given environments whose complexity offers resistance to symbolic readings.


Through the term, 'textures,' we aim to bring together transitional figures of thought in many fields:

in literary criticism: the movement from the material signifier to meaning, affect, and communication;
in the arts: the well-known 'resistance in the materials’;
in cognitive science: the transition from the neuronal to the mental;
in a textile: the construction of cloth and the surfacing of a pattern from the interwoven material threaded lengthwise (warp) and widthwise (weft);
in painting: the emergence of a whole through the patterning of smaller elements; the presentation of an 'all over' composition in a series of canvases;
in sound art: the blending of running water or traffic noise into a continuous sonic structure;
with regard to the body: the perpetual becoming-other of an allegedly fixed and bordered identity;
the ‘fold’ in Deleuze; the ‘tissue of quotations’ in Barthes, the ‘weave’ in Derrida, the feminist spider's embodied writing of gendered subjectivity, and other materialist readings of familiar poststructuralist conceits;
etc. (please send us your ideas)

The list is meant to be suggestive, not restrictive, of the range of interests we hope to accommodate. As the conscious embrace of constraints – in science, literature and the arts – , can be productive not narrowing, so is our theme designed to be generative and to stitch together the diverse theoretical and transdisciplinary approaches that have long defined SLSA research.


Call for Abstracts

The main conference site, The Stockholm School of Economics, is equipped with state of the art technology, but the newness and limited resources of the main organizer, e-t+t, means that we must restrict the conference to 120 papers.



Deadlines and Submission Address

Submission of abstract (300 words): end of June 2009
Notification by e-t+t: end of August 2009
Registrations: from September 2009; early bird rate:
170€ up to end of January 2010, then 200€
Paper submission: end of March 2010

All proposals should be sent to a single email address: 2010slsa@gmail.com

Please see the e-t+t website for updates: http://www.e-text-textiles.lv/

We look forward to your participation.

Yours,
Zane Berzina, Manuela Rossini, Joseph Tabbi (Co-Creative Directors of e-t+t),

Anda Klavina, Haralds Matulis (Site hosts),

and local and international partners