Communication, Culture and Critique (New Journal)

New ICA journal – Communication, Culture & Critique

Communication, Culture & Critique provides an international forum for research and commentary which examines the role of mediated communication in today’s world.  We welcome high quality research and analyses from diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, from all fields of communication, media, film and cultural studies, which is critically informed, methodologically imaginative and careful in its exposition and argument. Foci for enquiry can include all kinds of text- and print-based media, as well as broadcast, still and moving images and electronic modes of communication including the internet, games and mobile telephony. We publish research-informed and theory-focused articles, commentaries on evolving and topical issues, research notes and reviews (books, films, DVDs, etc.). Any and all approaches, analyses and perspectives are welcome, but especially those with a qualitative and/or interpretive inflection. Issue 1, vol.1 will be published in March 2008 and subsequent issues in the volume published in June, September and December 2008.  We look forward to receiving your contributions to this exciting new journal which we hope will quickly become an important voice in our field, offering lively and innovative perspectives and critiques.

Contributions to CCC are via the online submission system provided by Manuscript Central.  To submit your article/note/review, please go to:  http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cccr
and follow the online instructions.

Karen Ross
Editor
Karen Ross
Professor of Media and Public Communication
and Director of Graduate Studies
School of Politics and Communication Studies
University of Liverpool
Roxby Building
Liverpool L69 7ZT, UK
mob: 07798 884110
office: 0151 794 2310
e: karen.ross[AT]liverpool.ac.uk

Science as Culture (CFPs)

Science as Culture
CALL FOR PAPERS: special issue on
‘Technology, Death and the Cultural Imagination’

Deadline for receipt of abstracts: November 17th, 2007

This special issue will explore concepts of death – its causes, its
prevention, its ambiguities, its interfaces with life – and how these relate
to technocultures.

As well as technologies of death (as used in warfare, execution and death
camps) and technologies closely associated with death (aeroplanes, cars and
early industrial technology, for instance), medical technologies which aim
to prevent or delay death have had a considerable impact on what it means to
die and, conversely, what it means to live.  Cryonic suspension for example
keeps the body in a form of undeath and offers the possibility of
resurrection into a future world while the cloning of replacement body parts
blurs the boundaries of identity and thus poses questions about concepts of
death, life and individuality.  Similarly, technologies which keep the body
‘alive’ complicate legal definitions of death.  Science fiction in
particular has been concerned with reconceptualising what it means to die.

We are interested in papers which explore these ideas and their expression
in art and literature, including critiques of recent films and publications
or re-readings of classics, as well as readings of other cultural objects.
We also welcome papers which have a historical perspective and focus on
pre-twentieth century technologies of death.  Subjects for consideration may
include (but are not limited to) the following:

Consumer technologies and ‘unusual’ death.
Vampires.
Modern/Postmodern Frankensteins and concepts of (re)animation
Technology and the language of death (e.g.,’collateral damage’).
Technology, global capitalism and death.
Brain death and the preservation of the body.
Technologies of/and death as the subject of art.
Science fictions of death/undeath.
Celebrity resurrections.
Drugs and the concept of ‘living death’.
Technologies and the life of the body after death.
New technologies and preservation at the point of death.
‘Ghostly’ body parts and transplanted organs.
The status of the unborn or ‘potentially’ human.

Science as Culture is dedicated to exploring the culture of technoscientific
expertise and how it shapes the values which contend for influence over the
wider society.  The journal encompasses people’s experiences at various
sites – the workplace, the cinema, the computer, the hospital, the home and
the academy.  The articles are readable, attractive, lively, often humorous,
and always jargon-free. SaC aims to be read at leisure, and to be a pleasure.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent, by either post or e-mail
(with SaC in the subject line) to either of the following addresses, to
arrive no later than November 17th, 2007:

Debra Benita Shaw
Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies
School of Social Sciences, Media & Cultural Studies
University of East London
4-6 University Way
London E16 2RD
United Kingdom
d.shaw[AT]uel.ac.uk

Megan Stern
Senior Lecturer in English, Critical Theory & Media Studies
Department of Humanities, Arts & Languages
London Metropolitan University
Tower Building
166-220 Holloway Road
London N7 8DB
United Kingdom
m.stern[AT]londonmet.ac.uk

Synthetic Biology, Craig Venter and Bioethics

This week, Craig Venter has been working the UK media to its fullest in what seems a whistlestop tour over to convey his work in the area of synthetic biology. In the UK, news about this broke first in the Guardian on Saturday 6th October. Venter’s website promptly indicated that the newspaper was slightly ahead of itself by announcing this work, stressing that publications are not yet in place. It seems now that they were only 3 weeks ahead of themselves as Venter has clearly broken the news on this in the fullest sense. While he still stresses that this work is futuristic and unlikely to give rise to any new life forms within his lifetime, the rhetoric of promise is interesting. Last night on BBC’s Hard Talk and on Newsnight earlier in the week, he emphasised the importance of the research for environmental sustainability. This cannot be coincidental, but appears as a decisive, partial rebranding of gentic science. So, here we have a clear handling of the media taking place drawing on persuasive rhetorics about the long-term benefit of experimental science.  He talked about modifying humans to ensure they can survive in climates where greater carbon
is in the atmosphere. Nice idea. It’s all plausible, but we should still be wary of this utilization of discourses to co-opt political support for science.

I’m sure Venter’s work over this period will be the subject of many studies on science communication. Things seem much more sophisticated than they were 10 years ago, when the Human Genome was nearing completion. The ante has been upped, so to speak. Now the scientists are much more in tune with how to get the message out. I could not help but feel that the Guardian story was a first litmus test for public opinion. We’ve not seen the last of this yet.

Iain Borden

I met Iain Borden first in 1999 or 2000 at a seminar on technology at Roehampton. Subsequently, I read about his work on Skateboarding and the city and invited him to write a piece for the special edition of Research in Philosophy and Technology I co-edited in 2002. Since then – in part through the mailing list of The Bartlett School of Architecture – I’ve been drawn back to Iain’s work on skateboarding and the city.

Just yesterday, I visited The A Foundation in Liverpool, which is currently exhibiting its ‘Drum and Basin‘ (full pipe and pool styled basin) and Iain has an article in the essays that constitute part of this exhibit. It’s a phenomenal undertaking and I’m glad to keep being drawn back into Iain’s work. Some of my ideas relating to the Olympics and digital culture are slowly coming together and I hope to draw on Iain’s work some more. (See previous post about psychogeography.)

Psychogeography

Coverley, M. (2006). Psychogeography. Harpenden, Pocket Essentials.

‘Of course, it is through the media that psychogeography has gained a degree of mainstream acknowledgement and it is through the varied mediums of the novel and poetry, of film and internet, that it is able to leave a lasting record and to establish a tradition of its own. But, with the return of Robinson in Keiller’s work, we are recalled finally to Defoe himself in whom the figure of novelist, pamphleteer and radical combined to provide a lasting template for a future psychogeography in which literary endeavour and political activism are once again inseparable.’ (p.137)

Favicon Generator

http://www.favicon.co.uk/

 

To add that little something to those who view your site.

Leitmotif, Unity Theatre

Last night, I saw Andrew Dawson’s Leitmotif at the Unity Theatre. It was a small crowd – a little too small given the outstanding  performance from Dawson. It’s the kind of piece which is, at times, abstract enough to provoke the minimally sensitive viewer and accessible enough to engage anyone who ever doubted the medium of performance space. Everyone should see this.

Audacity

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Free audio editor and recorder to, for instance, record yourself when giving a presentation. I figure some of my presentations might actually turn into half-decent manuscripts.

thanks to: emma rich

iSquint

http://www.isquint.org/

Transform files into your preferred format eg. from .flv to .mp4

Site Sucker

http://www.sitesucker.us/

Capture an entire website in its original, linked form, just in case they disappear at some point.

european neuroscience and society network

The launch of the ENSN takes place in London next month on 12th and 13th November.

I’ll be there as will Alex Mauron who’s speaking in the final plenary. [Alex and I have written a couple of papers together with Bengt Kayser.]

Programme:

Neurosocieties: the rise and impact of the new brain sciences
November 12 & 13, 2007
Regent’s College Conference Centre, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London
Monday, November 12, 2007
9.00 – 9.30
Conference Registration
(Regent’s College Conference Centre, Main Lobby)
9.30-10.00
(Room D06)
Welcome: Neurosocieties: the rise and impact of the new brain sciences
Professor Nikolas Rose, Director, BIOS Centre for the study of Bioscience, Biomedicine,
Biotechnology and Society, London School of Economics
10.00-12.00
(Room D06)
Plenary One – Public health and the politics of the neurosciences
Professor Kent Woods, CEO, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency
“Regulation of medicines in a changing world: the challenges of neuropharmacology”
Professor Matilde Leonardi, Neurological Institute Carlo Besta, Italy
“Neurosciences and neuropolitics: the challenge of brain disorders”
12.00– 1.00
(Room D05)
Lunch
1.00-3.00
(Room D06)
Plenary Two – Neuroeconomies: markets, choice and the distribution of
neurotechnologies
Zack Lynch, Executive Director, Neurotechnology Industry Organization
“The Global Neurotechnology Industry 2007 and Beyond”
Dr. Philippe Pignarre, University of Paris; Publisher, Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond
“The birth of neuroeconomy”
3.00 to 3.30
Coffee Break
3.30 to 5.30
(Room D06)
Plenary Three – Sources of the neurochemical self: consciousness, personhood and
difference
Professor Alexandre Mauron, University of Geneva
Dr. Ilina Singh, BIOS Centre, LSE
5.30 Wine Reception & Conference Dinner
Herringham Hall, Regent’s Conference Centre
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
9.30 – 10.00
Coffee and Tea
10.00-11.00
Workshop One:
Public health and the politics of the
neurosciences
(Room D05)
Discussants:
Dr. Andreas Roepstorff,
University of Aarhus
Dr. Joao Arriscado Nunes,
University of Coimbra, Portugal
Workshop Two:
Neuroeconomies: markets, choice and the
distribution of neurotechnologies
(Room D06)
Discussants:
Dr. Paul Martin,
University of Nottingham
Dr. Ilpo Helen,
University of Helsinki
11.00-12.00
Workshop Three:
Sources of the neurochemical self:
consciousness, personhood and difference
(Room D05)
Discussants:
Professor Kenneth Hugdahl,
University of Bergen
Dr. Cordula Nitsch,
University of Basel
Workshop Four:
Neuroscience and Society: Future
Directions in Europe
(Room D06)
Discussants:
Professor Trudy Dehue,
University of Groningen
Professor Ilse Kryspin-Exner,
University of Vienna
12.00-1.00
Lunch
1.0 to 3.00
(Room D06)
Plenary Four – Neuroscience and Society: Future Directions in Europe
Professor Steven Rose, Open University
“Future Directions in Neuroscience: a twenty year timescale”
Professor Alain Ehrenberg
“Brain, Mind and Society: the Threefold cord”
3.00-3.30 Closing Remarks
Tea and Coffee served

T H E P A S T I N T H E P R E S E N T (Glasgow, 27-29 Oct 2007)

T H E    P A S T   I N   T H E   P R E S E N T
History as Practice in Art, Design and Architecture

An International Interdisciplinary Conference
Glasgow, 27th-29th October 2007
THE GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART – DEPT. OF HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES

* What is the role of historical research and critical reflection in art,
design and architectural practice?
* How is historical research and critical reflection in art, design and
architecture informed by debates around leisure and commodification,
pleasure and sensation, technology and mobility?
* How is historical research in art, design and architecture manifest in
independent practice, study beyond the academy, cultural criticism and
journalism?

This three-day conference will to bring together a broad range of
participants, including scholars, artists, designers, architects,
museologists, curators, archivists and collectors, to debate the ways in
which styles and genres from the past, both visual and written, have been
reinvigorated in the present for celebratory, nostalgic, or critical ends.

Keynote speakers
Professor Richard Dyer (King’s College London) has published widely on
visual culture and film studies, specifically issues of race and gender in
visual culture. His most recent work is Pastiche (Routledge, 2006).

Professor Pat Kirkham (Bard Graduate School) has published widely on gender
and design culture, as well as the history of design. She is best known for
her work on William Morris, Charles and Ray Eames, and most recently on Saul
and Elaine Bass.

Session speakers
In addition, the conference involves a range of speakers from around the
world, many of who will be speaking in Glasgow for the first time. Speakers
have come from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France,
Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, New Zealand, South Africa,
Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United States; as well as England, Wales, N.
Ireland and Scotland.

The papers represent a broad range of subjects, from tourist landmarks in
Delhi and the ‘rewilding’ of Africa to production design in Hollywood period
films and the use of Turkish history in contemporary advanced textiles.

A draft conference timetable is available online at:
http://www.gsa.ac.uk/pastinthepresent

Delegate places are still available. Registration details and forms are
available on our website.

For enquiries please contact: pastinthepresent [AT] gsa.ac.uk

Drawing Restraint 9

Last night, we saw the new Matthew Barney film, which included his wife, Bjork. Having seen the Cremaster films, Barney’s style remains distinct and similar.

It’s a joy to watch, though there were the inevitable audience members leaving half-way through. Having spent some time in Japan this year, it was nice to spot some of the cultural nuances.

Geographies and landscapes seem such strong themes in Barney’s films and I read his next journey is down the Nile. I’ll also be there in January.

Discussions afterwards were about the distinctions between artists, inventors and designers.

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/drawingrestraint9/trailer/

Bruce Sterling

Today, I joined the RCA’s Design Interactions again, at the invitation of Tony Dunne. The project was on Robot Ethics this time and I gave a lecture that talked about the relations between Prosthesis, Robotics and Artificial Life. Also speaking this morning was Bruce Sterling, whom it was a delight to meet. I have read Bruce’s work for some years and had email contact with him some time ago in relation to CTHEORY. After the morning sessions, we chewed the fat on urban regneration, Richard Florida, creativity and the trivialization of everything.

Here are some notes on his talk that I made. They might be impenetrable:

Design Interactions, Oct 8 2007

Robots
Bruce Sterling

Why no humanoid reobots?
From literature and theatre
Usually, humanoid, dim witted
Can take some limited orders from humans

Contemporary robot is different
C3P0
R2D2 – drone – remotely piloted
Humanoid vs ME: non-humanoid

Terminologies blur
- both referred to as droids

androids supposed to be different – semi-biological
- form and shape of human, but semi mechanical

gianoids – women shaped mechanical objects

robot in metropolis
- blog.wired.com/sterling
- robo veganza

when robot word invented, made from goo – poured into moulds

mechanical version came later

there is one household robot you can buy – disc shaped vacuum cleaner
- animals hate them
- can get stuff on things: destroy themselves
- no brains
- no emotional relationship
- not pets

why did robot dog fail?
- people played with it then forgot to plug it in.
- Sony iBo

These objects lack common sense, so cannot have relationship with

Put a face on our relationship to technology
- cannot have moral discussion with it
- can have one with dog – but not a robot dog

does not have morality

sony also built humanoid robot, but never launched

Institute of RoboEthics, Italy
- afraid to release, for fear of hackers

‘they can dance’

There aren’t any smart machines
- none that can ustd commonsense language
- not even translating machines

no embodiment

strings of 1s and 0s

nothing remotely behaves like this, nor getting closer to it

serious advances in robots
- intelligence NO
- solving Turing Test? NO

what we’ve got is ‘arms and legs’
- big Dog – darpa project, bath tub on legs; no head

uncanny
- not a perfect version of a robot human
- reach a

Marvin Minsky
- artificial emotions
- AI doesn’t work since human brains don’t work in the way he imagined
- Must be an emotional substrate below intelligence

Robots have no sense of preservation. They don’t reproduce

They don’t value their own existence

There’s no way for us to give them anything

Minsky now emotions

Hans Moravec
- most advanced schemes ‘bush robot’ – equipped to do nanotechnology
- ‘utility fog’ – get rid of everything and keep fingers
o a kind of gas – oozing through peoples bodies
o Behind a scheme like this is difficulty and tragedy

Melancholy tale of how the word robot was invented
- invented by a painter – jozef char

satirical play about industrialism – RUR – Rossums Universal Robots
- parody of industrial production
- basic researcher and industrial technologist
- scientist decides will make a mimic of human
- first makes a dog, but doesn’t work very well
- his son says it’s not working, so suggests try making an industrial labour
- get rid of parts that would make money – no sexuality, no emotional attachment, just really good memory, doesn’t sleep, eats anything, work tirelessly on assembly line
- robot = worker

communism,

humane

Performance and image enhancing drugs in the 21st century (Liverpool, 5 Oct, 2007)

After having met Jim McVeigh and Michael Evans-Brown in Aarhus a month or so back, I’m now substituting for Julian Savulescu at their meet on Friday. looks like an interesting conference….

http://pied-conference.net/

Le Grand Jeu (exhibition, london 10/10-10/11, 2007)

Marilène’s work is being utilized for our book ‘The Medicalization of Cyberspace’. her new exhibition begins later this month. I’m down at the Royal College of Art on the 8th Oct, hoping to get a sneak preview afterwards….

Marilène Oliver – Le Grand Jeu
EXHIBITION 10 October – 10 November 2007

BEAUX ARTS GALLERY
22 CORK STREET
LONDON W1S 3NA
Tel: 020 7437 5799
www.beauxartslondon.co.uk
info [AT] beauxartslondon.co.uk
Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 10am – 5.30pm, Saturday 10am-1.30pm

“I love her work because it does what art is supposed to do; open the way to another world.”
Jeanette Winterson

Since her first exhibition in 2003, Marilène has tirelessly continued to carve a unique place for herself in the art world, somewhere in between the disciplines of sculpture, printmaking, digital media and anatomy. Oliver uses digital copies of the human body (afforded by digital medical imaging technologies such as MRI and CT) in order to create figurative sculpture that provoke questions about the perception and identity of the human body in an increasingly digitized world.

For Le Grand Jeu Oliver worked with one sole anonymised CT dataset of a full female body called MELANIX, which she downloaded from a radiology website. Oliver chose to use an anonymised dataset so that she could project herself and her ideas onto and into it. In doing so she spawned a number of new large scale artworks.

Dervishes shows off Oliver’s new found skill of elaborate body carving. Oliver digitally sliced the body 36 times around a vertical axis, which runs from head to toe. Printed onto transparent material, each dervish has a different point of axis (front, back, centre, right and left) thus revealing a variety of views and encounters with the subject. Suspended from the ceiling, five ghostly life-size figures hang, inviting the viewers to walk among them. There is a solemn, dark beauty about these figures which seem to share a sense of intimacy with the viewer spinning independently as they catch the drafts of the passing viewers.

Oliver uses the same radiological tool to create Heart Axis / Womb Axis, but to entirely different effect.  This time, the axis’ are horizontal, slicing across the body, one through the heart and the other through the womb encouraging an emotional interpretation of the work.  Printed onto polycarcarbonate sheets with specialist colour-changing inks, the presentation draws on the language of gymnastics to suggest movement as the figures arch with the weight of the material they are created from.

In Grand Finale, Oliver uses the MELANIX dataset, to produce hundreds of maquettes.  Each different in both construction and colour, they hang as chandeliers, suspended in acrobatic positions, twisting and turning to give the impression of a carefully choreographed and spectacular finale of a ballet or musical.

The exhibition also features Leonardo’s Great Lady which is a 3-dimensional adaptation of an original drawing by Da Vinci; an extraordinary rendition of Otzi the 5,000 year old mummy found buried underneath the alps; a 3-D laser scan and rapid prototyping work entitled Shot Surface and a collapsed figure made of MRI scans engraved onto acrylic called the Exhausted Figure.

Olivers is an artistic brain with the creative spark needed to produce inspiring and thought-provoking works of art.  Yet, without contradiction or any apparent conflict, hers is also a scientific brain with logical thought processes and rational conclusions. For this reason, her work attracts a wide range of admirers from the art-collectors to doctors, medical specialists to philosophers and sociologists. Despite this academic appeal and capacity for endless intellectual debate; her art is primarily aesthetic and for this reason remains accessible to all who see to be enjoyed on many different levels.

There will be a catalogue to accompany the exhibition which includes an essay by Amelia Jones, writer and Professor in History of Art, University of Manchester.

No Taste No Art

Just a photograph from New York in 2002. The right kind of sentiment.

Something Political

Do I really need another blog? Ok, so, perhaps not, but for a while I’ve been thinking how best to locate certain subject areas that have nothing to do with specific, other aspects of my research. I’m not sure what this space is likely to achieve, but I’m not particularly concerned by that either.