"Call for Papers: Network Leaps, Bounds and Misses: Critiquing Regional Strategies for Digital"
2004-03-08 until 2004-03-31
Leonardo Electronic Almanac, MIT
Cambridge, MA, USA United States of America

Network Leaps, Bounds and Misses: Critiquing Regional Strategies for Digital Arts and Electronic Music in Asia and the Pacific Hosts Fatima Lasay as the editor for The Leonardo Electronic Almanac. Interested parties are invited to submit papers. The deadline for proposals 31 March 2004. Under the UNESCO Digi-Arts Knowledge Portal for technology-based arts and music, an international colloquium took place on 4-5 December, 2003 at the Sarai Center for Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, India.

The meeting, entitled "Old pathways/New travelers: new media, electronic music and digital art practices in the Asia Pacific region", sought to launch a media arts and electronic music initiative sponsored by UNESCO Digi-Arts and Sarai, to promote and develop research, networking, mutual cooperation, training and knowledge in these fields within the region. The meeting also aimed to point out the role and place of media and technology in a social, cultural and economic landscape inscribed by ancient histories of contact and paths that internally connect the landmass of Asia and the island cultures of the Pacific regions, its impact on young people and its potential as a unique tool to promote cultural diversity.

As critical and engaging discussions of such a network of associations are underway, what do our past and current national and regional practices reveal about the limits of localization, proximity, and regional reification? What lies beneath or within concepts of media and technology as instruments for promoting cultural diversity? Is media and technology a result or cause of culture? What is the position of media, art and technology in the ontological divide between regionalization and globalization? In which aspects do we need to transcend the regional level in the regional network building efforts? What is the significance of local ontologies within the process of building a regional network?

Can asymmetrical local and regional development and promotion of digital arts in the region be addressed by mere institutional and conventional proximity? If geographic proximity is insuficient, then which conceptual spaces might provide a more solid basis for cooperative development? What critical and realistic approaches have been and can be made, in both imagination and actualization, to move in opposite directions and still meet together, across the globe, in building that strong and balanced support structure for digital arts in the region?

For the June issue of LEA, we invite contributions from artists, musicians, practitioners, curators and critics that address regional networking competence problems and realities in the field of digital arts and electronic music in the Asia Pacific cultures.

LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers / students to submit their proposals for consideration. We particularly encourage authors outside North America and Europe to send proposals for articles/gallery/artists statements.

Proposals should include: - 300 word abstract / synopsis - A brief author biography - Any related URLs - Contact details

Deadline for proposals: 31 March 2004

Please send proposals or queries to: Fatima Lasay
fats@up.edu.ph

or Nisar Keshvani, LEA Editor-in-Chief
lea@mitpress.mit.edu

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of Massachusetts

Other Important Exhibitions in United States