The call for installations, performances, and artworks is finished but the call for participation is open until Nov. 16, 2012 as I noted in my Sept. 28, 2012 posting about the International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA) being held in Sydney, Australia from June 7 – 16, 2013. You can submit your 300 word proposal here until the Nov. 16, 2012 deadline. From my Sept. 28, 2012 posting, here is the 2013 ISEA theme and sub-themes,
Theme – ‘Resistance is Futile’
The cutting edge of digital art has moved from the margins to become part of the fabric of everyday life. At once ubiquitous and unnoticed, resistance to electronic art has proven futile — it now lies embedded in the heart of our contemporary cultures. The symposium events will infuse the city’s social, digital and physical infrastructure. ISEA2013 aims to create a fluid body of thought, culture, community, industry, science and technology.
Artists play an important role in this “cutting edge.” By creatively investigating the possibilities and pushing the limits of new technologies, artists help us imaginatively experience and critically reflect on their implications for life in the 21st century. Digital electronic art is our source of innovation, the new norm in everything from publishing to TV, to radio, games, film, fashion, music, architecture, design, applications and gadgets. Ubiquitous and pervasive, digital media permeates almost all creative endeavors in everyday life and the city. The urban spaces of Sydney will provide the scene for thinking through the consequences of digital life, creative industries, and contemporary electronic art practice.
Sub-themes/Threads
1. Resistance is Fertile
Resistance is Futile … Resistance is Fertile… Resistance is Necessary. ISEA2013 explores the ways art and new technologies are used in the service of power, politics, protest and resistance.2. Converging and diverging realities
The virtual bleeds into the real and increasingly our environments are mediated, augmented and transformed through technology. Mixed and augmented realities, obligatory social media, and locative technologies increasingly insert different realities into the physical world while communication simultaneously seduces us away from our immediate surroundings. As the “internet of things” becomes a reality, do we need to resist the ubiquitous society of participation, search, and the culture of always-on surveillance/sousveillance?3. Life … but not as we know it
Technologies are being used to extend human capabilities and to create new life forms. ISEA2013 explores how life is increasingly becoming a technology that is created, extended, and curated by the influence of artists working with technology. A chance to explore and critique the world of cyborgs, robots, alien life forms and the emergence of unnatural biologies.4. Histories and Futures of Electronic Art
Where once electronic media technologies were on the margins they now permeate almost all of art, commerce and creativity. Digital cultures, media art histories, and media archeologies permeate contemporary art and design, and inform ways of seeing and understanding the world. ISEA2013 offers a platform to explore where electronic art has come from, where it is going and what it might become.5. Ecologies and Technologies
The interrelationship of nature, culture and technology lies at the centre-stage of contemporary life. ISEA2013 explores technology as both the problem and solution, celebrating the role of the artist as innovator and provocateur. ISEA2013 engages questions of urban ecologies, consumption, food, climate, and sustainability.6. Creation, Collaboration and Consumption
Digital technologies and social media are transforming social and cultural interaction on both global and local scales. Everyone is connected, everyone is a creator. But not everybody likes what they see or wants to participate in the prescribed forms of contemporary social media. ISEA2013 encourages debate, provocations and engagement in the global nets of participation.
Good luck!