[ecrea] TaPRA CfP: Performing the Quantified Self

*
*Performance and New Technologies Working Group at TaPRA, University of
Bristol, 5th to 8th September 2016*

http://tapra.org/performing-the-quantified-self-authorship-ownership-and-autobiography-in-the-era-of-big-data/


*Performing the Quantified Self:*
*
*
*Authorship, Ownership and Autobiography in the era of Big Data.*

Call Deadline: *18 April 2016*

Questions of privacy and access drive current debates around big data
gathering, information mining and the re-appropriation and
commodification of virtual entities, posing practical and ethical
concerns around authorship, ownership and identity. Social networks
occupy a central position in our daily lives, circulating knowledge and
fostering innovation; but they are also closely monitored, leading to
hyper-centralized forms of surveillance with the data they produce being
re-appropriated, sold-on or assessed for market analysis.  It is
currently estimated that at least 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is
produced every day (Price 2015) and whilst the leakage, harvesting and
co-ordination of big data for capital gain is apparently inexorable,
there exists a burgeoning variety of authorial and autobiographical
strategies and interventions of network users for intuitive needs with
unintended ends.

For TaPRA 2016 the Performance and New Technologies Working Group
explores social networks and social media applications as phenomena that
turn users from bodies of flesh into bodies of data that are captured,
mined, exploited and subverted. It studies how people contribute to ‘a
permanent capture of life into data’ (transmediale 2015) through daily
routines of surfing, shopping, and life-logging. The event aims to make
transparent the triangulation between people, their data, and those who
use it; raise awareness regarding the scale and applications of those
phenomena; and propose ways of responding to this apparent loss of
privacy. Perfoming the Quantified Self encourages debate on the
potential impact of ‘capture all’ practices (ibid) and considers avenues
for resistance to - or celebration of -processes of self-quantification.

Performing the Quantified Self invites participants to reflect on
questions around (conscious and inadvertent) autobiographical
performance in a big data world:

  * How, where and for whom do we perform ourselves through tracking,
    surveillance, sousveillance, datafication and self-quantification?
  * Who authors, co-authors, orchestrates and controls our
    data-generating performances of the self; do we have control of our
    own data bodies?
  * What is private and what is public in a big data world where
    everything is tracked; are data bodies inevitably transparent
    bodies, always on display, available to read? How vulnerable does
    this make us to exploitation?
  * What are ways of regaining control of our selfhood and its (private
    and public) performance in this context?
  * How are processes of contribution and collaboration complementing or
    subverting existing forms of personalised annotation on the
    Internet? What are the implications for authorship? At what point
    does autobiography become a palimpsest of multiple authorship,
    resulting in a new category: the collaborative auteur (Kelly, 2015)?
  * What notable trends for interaction are producing new ways of
    mapping experience?
  * What are the power dynamics of a postmodern cartography in which
    traces, objects and reflections of multiple authors are ultimately
    controlled by the proprietary corporations that run the networks?


Proposals
Please send a 300  word proposal, a short biographical statement, and an
outline of technical requirements by 18th April to both Working Group
Conveners:
Dr Maria Chatzichristodoulou, (m.chatzi /at/ lsbu.ac.uk)
<mailto:(m.chatzi /at/ lsbu.ac.uk)><mailto:(m.chatzi /at/ lsbu.ac.uk)> &
Dr Jeremy Kelly, (Jem.Kelly /at/ bucks.ac.uk)
<mailto:(Jem.Kelly /at/ bucks.ac.uk)><mailto:(Jem.Kelly /at/ bucks.ac.uk)>

Proposals, if accepted, may be directed into a range of presentational
formats: traditional panels (with 20 minute papers); pre-circulated
papers that form the basis for a short presentation and discussion; or,
where appropriate, performance-based panels. While we welcome statements
of preference, final decisions will be made by the working group
conveners and will be indicated at the time of acceptance. We welcome
alternative, practice-as-research or performative proposals that engage
rigorously with the theme, but these must be achievable with limited
resources and within a 20-30 minute time period.

The Working Group also warmly welcomes participants who do not wish to
present a paper this year.

Please note: Only one proposal may be submitted for the TaPRA 2016
Conference. It is not permitted to submit multiple proposals or submit
the same proposal to several Calls for Papers. All presenters must be
TaPRA members, i.e. registered for the conference; this includes
presentations given by Skype or other media broadcast even where the
presenter may not physically attend the conference venue.

--
Dr Maria Chatzichristodoulou

Associate Professor in Performance & New Media
Head of External Development and Enterprise
School of Arts and Creative Industries
London South Bank University
103 Borough Road
London
SE1 0AA

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