I thought this might be an interesting opportunity for some list members;
symposium participation will likely be fully funded. (With apologies for
cross-posting)
Find more info at https://rethinkingaffordance.com/
<https://rethinkingaffordance.com/>
All best,
Martin
====
Call for Papers: Rethinking Affordance
Special Issue (Media Theory) & Symposium (Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart,
June 8 - 9 2018)
Co-editors and co-organisers: Ashley Scarlett and Martin Zeilinger
Abstracts and expressions of interest due by: January 29th, 2018
Responding to the continued and accelerating rise of algorithmic culture, this
journal special issue and corresponding symposium will explore critical
intersections between artistic practice and efforts to re-imagine the concept
of ‘affordance’ for the digital.
Theoretical considerations of ‘affordance’ originate at the intersection of
perceptual and cognitive psychology, specifically within the context of J.J.
Gibson’s work from the mid-60s onwards. According to Gibson, ‘affordance’
sought to account for the actionable properties of a physical object or
environment. An object’s affordances, in other words, describe its
phenomenological qualities, projecting potential uses, delimiting possible
actions, and signaling perceived functions. While discontinuities between
established discourses on ‘affordance’ and its contemporary deployment have
been widely identified and problematized, the theoretical parameters of digital
affordances remain under-examined. As a result, despite its frequent
application within the domains of, for example, HCI, media studies and
contemporary design, ‘affordance’ continues to operate within a conceptual
framework that largely ignores the specific grounds of contemporary
computation, resting instead on the physicality, phenomenological
accessibility, and perceived liveliness of objects. Importantly, each of these
defining characteristics are fundamentally incompatible with what are
increasingly referred to as the processual, ‘deep,’ and unperceivable realities
of algorithmic systems. Deploying the concept of affordance without a
reexamination of its digital specificity (for example when it comes to
interaction design, user experience design, or software development) ultimately
means to foreclose opportunities for generative critique, limiting the
potential for creative, alternative, subversive, and radically different uses
of digital artefacts and processes.
In an effort to delineate and address gaps in contemporary criticism, our aim
is to re-examine and correspondingly re-theorize the concept of ‘affordance.’
Because ‘affordance’ is often positioned at intersections of design and
implementation, we are particularly interested in approaches that bridge or
combine theoretical and practice-based concerns. As the history of art reveals,
artists’ and designers’ access to emerging digital technologies has always
informed their scientific, industrial, commercial and rhetorical development.
We therefore invite both media theorists and media practitioners (artists,
designers, curators, etc.) to join us in exploring the critical historical and
contemporary valences of ‘affordance,’ by proposing and submitting essays,
artist position statements, and symposium presentations that engage with the
following intersecting areas of inquiry:
- Explorations of the historical and contemporary roles artists have played in
shaping and delimiting the affordances of emerging digital technologies;
- Theorization of the contemporary realization of 'affordance' across and
within digital and algorithmic contexts; and
- Analyses of how creative practice can inform a critical rethinking of
existing philosophies of affordance.
Interested parties are encouraged to send a 300-word abstract to
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> by
January 29th, 2018. Authors will be notified of acceptance in early February.
The Rethinking Affordance symposium is scheduled to take place at Akademie
Schloss Solitude from June 8th – 9th (http://www.akademie-solitude.de
<http://www.akademie-solitude.de/>). The symposium will serve both as a
presentation and workshopping platform. It is scheduled to take place in
conjunction with a thematically aligned exhibition and web-residency.
Participants will be provided with accommodations for the duration of the
symposium. Small travel bursaries intended to partially subsidize participation
may also be available.
Symposium presenters will be invited to submit their longer research essays
(6,000-8,000 words inclusive of notes and references) and/or shorter critical
position statements for peer-reviewed inclusion in a corresponding special
issue of the journal Media Theory (http://mediatheoryjournal.org/
<http://mediatheoryjournal.org/>). Full papers for peer-review will be due July
15, 2018 with a projected publication date of early 2019. The submission
guidelines can be found here:
http://mediatheoryjournal.org/editorial-policies/journal-submission-guidelines/
<http://mediatheoryjournal.org/editorial-policies/journal-submission-guidelines/>
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