CALL - for papers and creative works for CODE Conference

CODE - A Media, Games & Art Conference
Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
21-23 November 2012

Deadline for abstracts: 22 June 2012

Code is the invisible force at the heart of contemporary media and games, routinely obscured by the gadget fetish of breathless tech marketing and scholarly focus on more visible social and technical interfaces. With the recent material turn in media studies and the refinement of new approaches including software studies and platform politics, which emphasise interrogating the formal characteristics and underlying technical architecture of contemporary media, the time has come to bring code out into the open.

Code can be defined in two distinct but related ways: as an underlying technological process, a set of rules and instructions governing, for instance, the permutations of all those 0s and 1s obscured behind user interfaces, but also as a cultural framework navigated and understood socially and performatively, as is the case with legal, social and behavioural codes. As an operative principle, code’s significance thus extends far deeper than its current digital manifestation. For this conference, the organsiers invite submissions of papers and creative works that consider the role of code as a simultaneously material and semiotic force that operates across the wider cultural, social and political field, with particular emphasis on media, games and art.

The conference theme is also an opportunity to reflect on how, as academics and creative practitioners, we often participate in but can also challenge the disciplinary and institutional codes that can arbitrarily separate these domains. CODE will be a transdisciplinary event that brings media studies, media arts and games studies into dialogue through individual papers, combined panels, master classes and an included exhibition.

The organsisers welcome submissions related to any aspect of code in all its diversity. Possible considerations might include, but are not limited to:

• Code and the in/visible
• Code and/as ideology
• Coding the disciplines
• The deeper history of code
• Code and the public/private
• ‘Code and other laws of media’
• Security codes
• Code and agency
• Bodies in code
• Failures of code

Creative works
Code operates, as if by stealth, beneath the materiality of networked media performances, software art, games, mobile apps, locative and social media. But code also presents artists, performers and creative practitioners with opportunities to construct innovative hybrid media forms that can extend our understanding of contemporary art practice. From video installations in the 1960s, through to sophisticated interactive media and augmented reality applications, artists have arguably been at the forefront of innovation, adopting the language of the computer to forge new creative frontiers. They invite contributions that examine the creative potential of code, including but not limited to, the implications of code for contemporary artists, code as art and/or performance, code as avant-garde, virus and anti-art.

The CODE conference will include a thematic exhibition. They are seeking submissions of screen-based works, pervasive games, and locative media projects that respond to the conference themes. Projected and performance works will also be considered.

A special journal issue or edited collection on the conference theme is planned.

For more information: http://code2012.wikidot.com/call-for-papers