8th Symposium on Systems Research in the Arts

One for Ben?

The 8th Symposium on Systems Research in the Arts:
Music, Environmental Design, and the Choreography of Space

to be held in conjunction with the

18th International Conference on Systems Research, Informatics, and
Cybernetics

Proposals are invited for the 8th Symposium on Systems Research in the
Arts, to be held in conjunction with the 18th International Conference
on Systems Research, Informatics, and Cybernetics, August 7-12, 2006 in
Baden-Baden, Germany. The study of systems within the scope of
traditional arts-related theory, or the application of general systems
methodologies to the analysis of music, architecture, interior design,
dance, theatre, and the visual arts are areas of particular interest.

Proposals for presentations/papers of approximately 200 words should be
submitted by March 31, 2006. Please visit the Symposium Web site at
http://www.choreographyofspace.org for more information.

For additional contact information and details, please visit the IIAS
home page at http://www.iias.edu.


James Rhodes, PhD
Associate Professor of Computer Science
Jacksonville University
Jacksonville, Florida 32211
jrhodes@ju.edu
904-256-7494 (Office)

CFP: 3rd Design Research Symposium

SWISS DESIGN NETWORK - Call for Papers

Drawing New Territories – Best of Design Research

The Swiss Design Network (the national network of excellence of the universities of applied sciences, www.swiss-design.org ) organises its 3rd Design Research Symposium at the University of Design in Geneva, Switzerland on 17th–18th November 2006. In this context, the SDN calls for contributions on the subject Drawing New Territories – Best of Design Research.

At a future stage, the Swiss design schools will offer international compatible Master and PhD studies which shall be defined according to the most relevant focus of research programs. The symposium organised by the Swiss Design Network will serve as a platform for scientific discourse, offering Swiss design students and professors access to the international network of protagonists in the area of design research.

We are seeking exceptional examples of research projects in the area of design, conceived within the framework of a Master or PhD course of study, as well as projects proposing an original working method suitable for scientific development at a higher level. Projects from all areas of design are welcome (Industrial Design, Interior Design, Fashion & Textile Design, Visual Communication, Interaction / Interface Design, Design Theory and History). Please submit a project summary of two (2) A4 pages together with the curriculum vitae of the author. A form can be downloaded from www.swiss-design.org The accepted papers will be published in a book. The publication of the last Design Research Symposium can be ordered on www.swiss-design.org Deadline for proposals: 28.02.2006 Please send your proposal as word.rtf or PDF per e-mail to Swiss Design Network, Ralf Michel ralf.michel@hgkz.ch

With best regards from the Swiss Design Network

Ralf Michel, Director

CFP: Computational Models of Creativity in the Arts

Wednesday 16 to Thursday 17 May 2006

A partnership between Goldsmiths and Birkbeck Colleges and the
University of Sussex

Hosted by Goldsmiths Digital Studios, Ben Pimlott Building,
Goldsmiths College, University of London

Including a public evening performance/exhibition event on the 16
May curated by BLIP and the Computer Arts Society at the Science
Museum's Dana Centre in Knightsbridge

The proceedings will be a special issue of Digital Creativity
Journal (2007:1), Routledge

Call for Participation

This workshop will bring together practitioners and researchers
who are involved in the use of computational systems in the fine
and performing arts, literature, design and animation as well as
the associated fields of aesthetics, cognitive science, art
history and cultural theory. It especially invites those
involved in the computational analysis and modelling of creative
behaviour to meet and share their experiences and explore the
potential of co-operative future ventures. It is intended that
this call should interest the widest possible constituency.
However a very broad list of (non-exclusive) descriptors might
include:
* the application of computational and generative methodologies
in the arts and related creative disciplines
* computational approaches to creativity, cognition and
aesthetics
* the application of artificial intelligence and artificial life
* the application of evolutionary and adaptive systems
* cultural applications of computing and digital electronics in
general

Categories of Submission
* Position papers, posters, abstracts, etc...
Places are limited! Please send in a one-page (maximum) outline
of why you (and your colleagues) would like to attend and what
you could contribute and/or how you might benefit. Include URLs
to relevant projects/experience where possible
* Artworks, performances, etc...
Please submit a one-page proposal including technical
requirements. Include URLs where possible

Deadline
The deadline for outlines and proposals is 19 March 2006. They
should be sent to the conference chairs as PDF attachments to an
email with the subject "CMCA Workshop Submission"

Co-Chairs
* Paul Brown, University of Sussex - paul@paul-brown.com
* Janis Jeffries, Goldsmiths - j.jefferies@gold.ac.uk
* Nick Lambert, Birkbeck - nick.lambert@gmail.com

Organising Committee
* Catherine Mason, Birkbeck
* Tim Blackwell, Goldsmiths
* Jon Bird, University of Sussex
* Miguel Andres-Clavera, Goldsmiths
* In-Yong Cho, Goldsmiths
* Maria x, Goldsmiths

Advisory Committee
* Margaret Boden, University of Sussex
* Phil Husbands, University of Sussex
* Ernest Edmonds, University of Technology, Sydney
* Charlie Gere, University of Lancaster
* Mitchell Whitelaw, University of Sussex
* Sue Gollifer, University of Brighton
* Tony Longson, California State University, Los Angeles
* Adrian David Cheok, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
* Dustin Stokes, University of Sussex

Funded by the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Enterprise -
LCACE - and the University of Sussex

Art in the land

Dear Students,

See below from Antonia. If you want her contact details, let me know.

Just in case you aren’t already aware, Glasgow School of Art and Glasgow University’s Crichton Campus are collaborating to present a conference entitled

Art in the Land: Ritual, Polemic, Speculation

This will take place at the Crichton Campus from Friday 31 March to Sunday 2 April. There’s a great line up of speakers and there will be visits to various local sites in the Dumfries area on the Sunday.

Details of the rationale, timetable and registration procedure can be found by clicking on either of these two links: www.gsa.ac.uk/land and www.cc.gla.ac.uk/land but if you would like any other information please contact me directly.

Do please pass this information on to any friends/colleagues/students who you think may be interested and we are also looking for reliable students (!!) to help out as volunteers in return for free attendance at the conference (and a free sweatshirt!).

Antonia Malcolm
Art in the Land: Conference Administrator

Sound and Anthropology

This one may be interesting for Alex:

Call for papers and presentations
Sound and Anthropology Conference

A collaboration between Department of Social Anthropology, St Andrews,
Scotland and Department of Sound Arts and Design, London College of
Communication, University of the Arts, London
Funded by the AHRC

19-21 June 2006.
St Andrews University, Scotland

This conference is the result of an innovative collaborative project
between the Social Anthropology Department, St Andrews and the Sound
Arts and Design department, LCC, University of the Arts, London. The
project has involved collaboration and dialogue between sound artists
and anthropologists, covering subjects such as the soundscape, acoustic
ecology, poetics, language, as well as postgraduate training in
methodologies and skills.
We invite proposals for papers, panels and works on subjects related to
the conjoined disciplines of sound and anthropology, most specifically
on the subject of body, environment and human sound-making, from
anthropologists, sound artists and researchers in associated
disciplines, including postgraduates, wishing to contribute to and
extend this exciting area of study.

Subjects might include:
Sound/Environment/Landscape
Listening and the Senses
Sound/Health/Body
Poetics/Magic Words
Sound and Migration
Speech/Utterance/Language
Archival sound/Oral history
Airwaves/Technology
Ethics/Collecting sound
Using recordings
Sound art/Performance and Anthropology
Sound/Rhythm/Rhyme
Silence and Noise

Please submit 200 word (maximum) abstract; 100 word (maximum)
biography; technical requirements; name, position, institution; postal
address; email address; phone number.
We encourage proposals from postgraduate research students.
There will be limited opportunity to display works

Closing date for submission: February 15th, 2006
Speakers will be notified by March 24th, 2006

Proposals should be sent to:
Dr Stephanie Bunn sjb20@st-andrews.ac.uk,
Dr Cathy Lane c.lane@lcc.arts.ac.uk


Dr Cathy Lane
CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice)
http://www.soundarts.co.uk/

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS: DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS IS 6TH FEBRUARY 2006

REFLECTIONS ON CREATIVITY:
exploring the role of theory in creative practices

Issues
Papers and projects are solicited from across the disciplines of architecture, fine art, design, new and timebased media, which discuss the role of theory in creative practice. Suggested areas of interest revolve around the intersection of theory, practice and research, and include:

• Theory as practice; practice as theory.
• The resistance of practice to theory; the colonisation of practice by theory.
• The different relationships of theory to creative practice.
• The role of historical consciousness in creativity.
• The effect of RAE on the forms of creative practice in academe.
• The relations of theory and practice to research.
• Practice-based research.
• Theory as a platform for practice-based research.
• The nature of the split between theory and practice.
• Differences between research, theory, and practice in the creative arts, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.
• Theory often takes the form of a critique of practice using the interpretive approaches of the liberal arts & sciences: psychoanalytic theory, structuralism, philosophy, gender studies, socio-economics, and the like. Are there other possible forms of theoretical interest in practice?

Symposium
This two day symposium will be comprised of 4 paper sessions with two or three 20 minute paper presentations each, including an invited keynote speaker. Each paper session will be followed by a workshop, led by a workshop facilitator, including the speakers, which will focus on issues raised in the papers.

Dissemination
We intend to publish edited transcripts of the workshop sessions in addition to the papers. The submission of final papers for publication should be no more than 4000 words.

Venue
The symposium will be held on the 21st and 22nd of April 2006, at the DCA (Dundee Contemporary Art) and is sponsored by the University of Dundee and the Duncan of Jordanstone Faculty of Art and Design. The DCA is one of Scotland’s premier galleries and institutions of contemporary art and design.

Call
We are seeking papers from practitioners and theorists in Scotland, the UK, and abroad; and papers from staff and post-graduate students at the University of Dundee. We are also seeking workshop facilitators and participants from the University of Dundee. This will be an international conference with contributions from many UK HEI’s.

Dates
Mon 6 Feb 2006: Submission of 300 word abstract + 100 word biography
Wed 22 Feb 2006: Notification of acceptance of abstracts
Fri/Sat 21/22 Apr 2006: Symposium
Fri/Sat 21/22 Apr 2006: Submission of 4000 word papers for publication at Symposium

Submit abstracts to
Hamid van Koten h.h.vankoten@dundee.ac.uk or Lorens Holm l.holm@dundee.ac.uk

For further information please contact Sandra McNeil: s.mcneil@dundee.ac.uk

Victorian masculinities

Two-day postgraduate conference on Victorian masculinities at Keele University on 20th-21st April, 2006.

The conference - sponsored by AHRC, the British Association for
Victorian Studies and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
- aims to bring together research students from across the humanities who are working on the topic of masculinity in the Victorian period. This could include the construction, representation or discussion of masculinity in visual art, design, literature or historical discourses of the period.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 20th January, 2006.

Thanking you in anticipation.

Amelia Yeates
Graeme Smart
Conference organizers

masculinitiesconference@contacts.bham.ac.uk
www.masculinities.bham.ac.uk

A third CFP

I promise, the last one today

Contexts, Fields, Positions: Situating Cultural Research
Postgraduate Conference, University of East London
25-26 May 2006

This conference will provide an opportunity to consider how research contexts shape our study of culture. In the humanities and social sciences researchers think about and deploy the concept of culture in different ways, and this is what we want to explore. We refer to 'research contexts' in their broadest sense, including cultural, institutional and disciplinary locations, theoretical positions and methodologies. How do the conditions created and maintained within these contexts determine or shape our object of study?

Questions central to this conference are:

* What kinds of analysis of culture are possible in different cultural, institutional and disciplinary contexts?
* How has your research situation constituted the methods and findings of your research?
* How has your theoretical framework helped you to select the subject you are researching and directed the approach you have taken?
* What concepts of culture circulate in your field? How do these relate to other concepts such society, politics, history, nation, experience, and memory? And what are the connections between these and theorisations of identity?
* Is your work part of an intellectual tradition? Has it been shaped by contemporary academic trends? Are your research interest strategic, and if so what has conditioned them?
* Are there other contexts which have shaped your research but are not widely recognised as significant?
* We expect the conference theme to be broadly interpreted. Some speakers may choose to focus on the findings of their research, while others may wish to address their methodological or theoretical approaches. Primarily, this conference presents an opportunity to reflect on the factors which have organised and shaped your research in a supportive and intellectually stimulating environment. It is open to postgraduate students from all disciplines and at all stages in their study.

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Professor Derek Robbins, University of East London, 'The Conflict of the Faculties'
Dr Joanna Zylinksa, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 'Beyond Moralism: Cultural Studies, Politics, Ethics'

'Contexts, Fields, Positions' is a postgraduate conference organised by postgraduate students in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies, East London. It is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the Collaborative Training Provision scheme. The conference will be held at the University's Docklands Campus.

To apply please submit an abstract of 300 words (for a 20 minute paper), or a panel proposal (3 papers).

By email: conference2006@uel.ac.uk or by post to: Karen Cross / Rebecca Bramall, School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies, University of East London, Docklands Campus, 4-6 University Way, London E16 2RD.

More info: http://www.uel.ac.uk/ssmcs/research/cfp/index.htm

When submitting your application please include the following details:
Name:
University:
Title of paper:
Abstract:
Contact telephone number:
Postal address:
Email address:
IT/AV request:

Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2006

The conference will be free to attend. We are also please to offer a limited number of travel bursaries for students living outside London. If you wish to be considered, please submit a brief statement outlining your reasons (maximum 50 words).

Another CFP - specially for Frances

Is it a good idea to put Calls for Papers here rather than emailing?


The History of Art Department at the University of Birmingham is organising its first one-day postgraduate-led conference on all aspects of eighteenth-century art and visual culture, and invites proposals for 20-minute student papers.

The conference will be a valuable opportunity for students of eighteenth-century art to share their research in a friendly environment, gain new ideas, prompt new directions in their studies, and to network with others.

To coincide with the conference there will be an exhibition of eighteenth-century illustrated travel literature, selected from the collections of the Barber Art Library and Birmingham University Library’s Special Collections. All speakers and delegates will have the opportunity to visit this exhibition. They will also be able to enjoy the wider collections of the Barber Institute in which the History of Art Department is situated. The Barber has particularly outstanding holdings of eighteenth-century art.

Proposals of around 300 words in length, along with your name, contact details and institutional affiliation, should be sent to Caroline Walker: caroline@glyncotts.freeserve.co.uk, by the closing date of 1 February 2006.

The conference is being held with the support of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and the University of Birmingham Postgraduate Centre.

Journeys Across Media: Manifestations of Media Technology

From Nathalie:

Journeys Across Media: Manifestations of Media Technology
JAM 2006 at the University of Reading
Friday 21 April 2006

CALL FOR PAPERS
Journeys Across Media (JAM) is an annual one-day conference based in the Department of Film, Theatre & Television at the University of Reading, organised by and for postgraduate students on a national and international level, which aims to provide a discussion forum for current research in the areas of film, theatre, television and 'new media'.

Established in 2003, JAM has proven successful in providing an opportunity for postgraduate students to gain experience in presenting aspects of their research as a conference paper within a friendly environment. This is the fourth consecutive year that this highly popular event is happening, and we warmly invite postgraduates working on film, theatre, television and 'new media' to submit proposals on the theme outlined below.

Experimentation with and exploration of New Media technologies has generated a growing interest in the study of apparatus within the visual arts. New technologies often share traits with older forms and this connection has led scholars to the comparative study of technological innovations within the history of media. Whilst significant work has been produced on the use of sound and lighting, further technical aspects of theatre, the practices and possibilities of the camera, CGI, etc, there is much scope for greater exploration. Technology has been seen as essential to the study of texts and the increasingly self-reflexive character of cultural products has transformed the apparatus itself into a visual sign with further implications. The main purpose of this year's JAM conference is to bring to
the fore the uses and abuses of old and new technologies in cinema, video art, television and theatre and to situate them within critical and cultural approaches.

Technological apparatus to consider might include cameras, film stock or video formats, sound recording methods, lighting, vision mixing, chromakey or stage and studio apparatus, as well as digital and new media technologies.

Possible questions to address:

.. How are the technologies used in film, television, new media or theatre
practices encoded in the meaning, style or aesthetic of a work?
.. What are the advantages and limitations of a specific technical apparatus?
.. How does technical equipment or a technological process increase, enhance or alter the possibilities of representation? Relevant issues might include a technology's interaction with performance or its effect on visual and audio style as well as the various applications of digital compositing and animation.
.. How does the combination of different media technologies, or 'intermedialities' create new aesthetic or ontological considerations?
.. How is technology used self-reflexively in a media text?
.. How are the properties of different media formats, such as DVD and video exploited within the marketing and packaging of media works and what effect does this have on the original text?

The day is expected to run from 10am to 5pm.

Papers should be no more than 20 minutes. Please send abstracts of approximately 250 words plus a biographical note by Monday 30th January 2006

to:

Leah Panos/Kostas Kostantinidis
The Department of Film, Theatre & Television
University of Reading
Bulmershe Court
Reading, RG6 1HY
or e-mail JAM2006@hotmail.co.uk
Visit the JAM2006 website http://www.rdg.ac.uk/fd/research/jam.htm#JAM_2006
for a registration form.

Blogs for research

Hoping they inspire you to write, here are the URLS of some of the blogs Helen and I discussed on the Information Management session of the training programme.

PhD weblogs: Specially the entry entitled I did a PhD and did NOT go mad


Research Blogs: Although it is a bit out of date, I still find some of the links on this page useful


Anne Galloway's PhD blog: This is one of the examples I showed in the training session. Anne is currently very close to completion and her progress is gripping. I think she strikes a good balance between the research content and process and she has a very good writing style.

Number 73 Bus: This blog is part of a research project that takes place in the INCITE lab at the University of Surrey. Apart from thematically interesting, it is a very visual research log.

Textiles PhD

Dear all,

Following today's session on the artefact, here's are the details of the textiles research student I was talking about:

Zane Berzina, PhD
London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London
Skin Stories: Research Using Analogies of Human Skin Tissue in Relation to Textile Practice

For an outline of her PhD, click here

Supervisor: Dr Frances Geesin. More info on Frances here

The artefact

In preparation for next week's training session (15 November) on the artefact, could you please read 2 papers of this list and be ready to introduce them (summary and critical comment) to the group next week?

Research into Practice: the role of the artefact in Art and Design research

Let me know if you have any troubles or need further guidance.

L.

xTime project

Following on from the Research Project Management training session today, I thought I'd upload the link to download xTime Project shareware. Remember it only ollows you to have 10 tasks per project... However, I still find the Gantt/Pert facility useful...

Click on the image!

Welcome

Welcome to the Glasgow School of Art Research Degrees blog.




Research Degrees students at GSA are invited to participate in these discussions, which consider issues related to training, research resources, research processes or other topics related to research degrees.

The Research Degrees Coordinator will issue them with invites, login details and, if required, training on how to use the Blogger interface. Due to the public nature of the weblog, it will be managed by the Research Degrees Coordinator who will have a veto on issues deemed confidential.