Junctures issue 15: "Viral" Full papers due: 10th September Publication date: December 2011
Parallel discourses of the viral have generated a space where attempts to contain and drive contagions continue to influence and determine relationships between people, animals, technologies and ecologies. In the 1980s and 1990s the virus was seen as a replication machine that forced a questioning of the boundaries of bodies (whether carbon or silicon) and the hybrid borders of identity. At 11.59 on December 31 1999 some held their breath, waiting for an error in computer clocks that would potentially instigate a mass shut down; others anticipated the Y2K bug*s destruction of the nascent networked computer environment. Ever since we were gripped by this proactive hysteria, viral movements and their oppositional protection systems have led to an increasingly fluent, yet potentially more vulnerable, digital and social environment. In the organic world viral systems penetrate species boundaries at a nano scale, enacting dystopic and cyborgian fantasies through inter-species connections, bringing human closer to ape, swine and bird. Whether described in physical, social or technical terms the virus shares its distribution, scale and risk with internal powers that reorientate our definitions of nature (and matter). This issue seeks speculative writing from the humanities, visual, sonic and performing arts, social sciences, law, education, medicine, and *hard* sciences that address relationships and contact, moments of transformation, replication, growth, and resistance. Topics might include: * relationships between species * disease and protection * proactive marketing campaigns * viral language * the hive * epidemics * computer viruses * fear and recognition of difference * exponential scales .......................................................................................................................... Regards Pam McKinlay Pam McKinlay Editorial Assistant Junctures: The Journal for Thematic Dialogue Otago Polytechnic Te Kura Matatini ki Otago Dunedin email: [email protected]
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