Call for Papers

i'm chairing a panel at the FreeExchange conference at the University of Calgary (March 18 & 19), so submit some papers to me. the call for my panel is below. visit the conference web site here.


Making Media: The Social Responsibility of Experimental Art

Marshall McLuhan wrote that “in experimental art, men are given the exact specifications of coming violence to their own psyches from their own counter-irritants or technology” (Understanding Media 71). The social responsibility that McLuhan places upon the experimental artist has been taken up by practitioners in various disciplines, evident in the production of experimental work highlighting the process and circumstances of its construction. Despite the volume and depth of such work, experimental art has been largely ignored by mainstream culture. Increasingly, all media is subsumed into the overarching superstructure of the Internet, the social effects of which are only beginning to be understood.

Paper proposals are being accepted for a panel concerning the social responsibility of experimental art, with a focus on the relationship between art and technology. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

-the role of experimental art in advancing understanding of new media and its social effects
-public resistance to experimental art
-the avant-garde in relation to technology
-the possibilities the Internet offers in the production or distribution of art
-the responsibility of the experimental artist to predict, examine, and insulate the public against the “coming violence” of new technology

Papers should be between 15-20 minutes in length. Abstracts are due 25 January, 2006. The conference will be held on March 10th and 11th at the University of Calgary in Calgary, AB, Canada.