[ecrea] CODE - A Media, Games & Art Conference - Swinburne University, Melbourne (CFP deadline 31 May)

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Call for Papers and Creative Works
CODE - A Media, Games & Art Conference
21-23 November 2012
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Jussi Parikka - Reader, Winchester School of Art
Christian McCrea - Program Director for Games, RMIT University
Anna Munster - Associate Professor at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW

DESCRIPTION
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, we 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.

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.

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.

THEMES
We 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

:: For further discussion, please view the conference website: 
http://code2012.wikidot.com <http://code2012.wikidot.com/>

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. We invite contributions 
that examine the creative potential of code, including but not limited 
to, the implications of code for contemporary art/ists, code as art 
and/or performance, code as avant-garde, virus and anti-art.

The CODE conference will include a thematic exhibition. We 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.

SUBMISSIONS
- Individual 20 minute paper presentations: 300 word abstract.

- Panel submissions: panel submission should include three/four 
individual abstracts of 300 words, a panel title, and a 200 words 
rationale for the panel as a whole.

- Artists should submit a 250 word outline of the proposed creative work 
including links to supporting documentation (10 stills or up to 3 
minutes of video).

All submissions are due 31 May 2012 and should be emailed to 
(codeconference /at/ groupwise.swin.edu.au) 
<mailto:(codeconference /at/ groupwise.swin.edu.au)>

Please include your name, affiliation, contact details, and a brief bio.

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

FURTHER INFORMATION
- Conference website: http://code2012.wikidot.com 
<http://code2012.wikidot.com/> (includes venue and registration 
information, thematic discussion, reading list, etc.)
- Contact: (codeconference /at/ groupwise.swin.edu.au) 
<mailto:(codeconference /at/ groupwise.swin.edu.au)>

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