[ecrea] MIX 2017: Revolutions, Regenerations, Reflections

*MIX 2017:
REVOLUTIONS, REGENERATIONS, REFLECTIONS

BATH SPA UNIVERSITY, NEWTON PARK CAMPUS. 10-12 JULY 2017*

www.mixconference.org <http://www.mixconference.org>

*CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS*

After the success of the last three MIX conferences, MIX 2017 returns to 
Bath Spa University’s Newton Park Campus. Bath Spa University is the 
UK’s foremost provider of creative writing programmes at undergraduate, 
masters and PhD level and MIX is well-established as an innovative forum 
for the discussion and exploration of writing and technology. MIX has 
attracted an international cohort of contributors from the UK, 
Australia, and Europe as well as North and South America. MIX is now 
situated within the recently created international research centres - 
Making Books: Creativity, Print Culture & the Digital, and the Media 
Convergence Research Centre.

After more than two decades of innovation and experimentation, the 
relationship between reading, writing, form, content and delivery 
platform remains in flux. The e-book has taken its place alongside the 
print book and the multimedia story app and/or website have become 
familiar modes for reading and viewing. Developers are creating dramatic 
story and character-led narratives via independent games while 
interactive and immersive theatre-makers are finding new ways to engage 
audiences well beyond traditional theatre spaces. Television 
storytelling conventions continue to evolve in line with the dominance 
of streaming services; new reading habits and engagement strategies now 
surround the form of digital comics. Music exhibitors are forging 
increased participatory opportunities via developments in live-touring; 
spoken word continues to thrive at the same time as poetry film is 
gaining wider recognition; virtual reality and augmented reality are 
both making in-roads into documentary and fiction; literary forms are 
morphing and changing in response to the affordances of the smartphone 
and tablet; pervasive and locative media are shaping how literature is 
understood and read. Digital media technologies foster creative ways of 
telling stories across multiple platforms. New media hasn’t been ‘new’ 
for quite some time and the word ‘digital’ is rapidly becoming redundant 
as technology becomes more deeply enmeshed within our cities, our homes, 
our lives.

In this context, a conference that looks at where creative writing, 
storytelling and media creation intersects with and/or is dependent upon 
technology should be as interdisciplinary as possible, and that’s what 
we are aiming for with MIX 2017. The conference will host a vibrant mix 
of academic papers, practitioner presentations, seminars, keynotes, 
discussions and workshops. Alongside scholars and researchers, artists, 
creative writers and creative technologists interested in literary forms 
are welcome to submit proposals.

*Confirmed keynotes* include Prof Jon Dovey 
<http://people.uwe.ac.uk/Pages/person.aspx?accountname=campus%5Cj-dovey>, 
Digital Culture Research Centre and Pervasive Media Studio at the 
University of the West of England; Dr Elizabeth Evans 
<https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/clas/departments/cfm/people/elizabeth.evans>, 
Assistant Professor in Film and Television Studies at the University of 
Nottingham; Anna Gerber and Britt Iverson from Visual Editions 
<http://visual-editions.com/about>/Editions at Play; and Prof Caitlin 
Fisher <http://www.yorku.ca/caitlin/home/>, Director of York University 
Augmented Reality Lab, Toronto, Canada.

The *themes* for this year’s conference are *revolutions, regenerations 
and reflections*. We would like to encourage the submission of research 
papers and artist/practitioner presentations that address these themes 
in the following ways:

   * *Revolution*: science and writing; turning points and key moments in
     the development of digital literature; writing in and on urban
     spaces; 3D environments; writing and narrative using virtual reality
     and augmented reality; transnational creativity; ambient literature
   * *Regeneration*: young writers and the future of creative writing;
     new directions and new hybrid forms; remix; hybridity; new
     possibilities offered by new technological platforms and tools
   * *Reflection*: scholarly or practice-based papers that focus on
     practice that resides at the intersection of writing, storytelling,
     media creation and technology; the history of the book and other
     media forms and how those histories inform present day reading,
     consumption, publishing and exhibition practices; work which
     investigates and forecasts the future of reading; digital writing
     pedagogy

We are interested in work that takes a wide variety of forms, including 
digital fiction and digital poetry, participatory media, digital art and 
text, collaborations between writers and technologists, hybrid and 
cross-media practice, transmedia practice, as well as our on-going 
themes of the future of the book, new forms of publishing, convergent 
media cultures and new forms of digital curation. We’ll also look for 
papers and presentations on digital and interactive theatre-making, 
including scriptwriting, performance and technology, and ambient 
literature, including mobile, locative, pervasive and other 
site-specific forms. As in previous conferences, papers that focus on 
pedagogy in any of these fields are also welcome.

We will have several strands of discussion, and these will include 
transnational creativity as well as interactive documentary; the 
Bristol-based interactive documentary group, iDocs, will offer a series 
of screenings. The second of three new works commissioned for the 
AHRC-funded research project, Ambient Literature, will be launched at 
MIX 2017.

NAWE, the National Association of Writer in Education, will be joining 
BSU to curate the pedagogical strand of the conference. In the teaching 
of creative writing, from primary to postgraduate level there is an 
increasing need to incorporate cross media practice. How can we teach 
the digital aspects of writing? Innovative practice requires innovative 
pedagogy. We are keen to receive papers from those who work with 
creative writing at all levels, primary, secondary, community and post 
graduate, and to hear about teaching methods, and innovative projects. 
We welcome submissions from educators who are also artist/practitioners 
who incorporate their creative practice into their teaching.

In addition to this Call for Papers, we will also issue the following Calls:

  1. a Call to digital writers and artists for entries to the Exhibition.
     Further information will be published shortly.
  2. a Call for the competition to create a work for our MediaWall in
     association with Paper Nations. Building on the success of MIX
     2015’s international artist’s commission for the MediaWall, James
     Coupe’s ‘General Intellect’, we have teamed up with Paper Nations to
     commission a writer or artist or team to create a new literary
     artwork for the Bath Spa University’s MediaWall. The artwork will
     need to include original writing from young people age 8-14. The aim
     is to encourage a high level of engagement from schools across
     England and we would welcome innovative methods for mass
     participation such as crowdsourcing. Funded by Arts Council England,
     Paper Nations is the country’s first and only creative writing hub
     for young people. This ambitious project brings together the best
     and most innovative arts organisations, creative writers and
     educators with a common purpose: to inspire a creative nation of
     young writers. For further information will be published shortly.

Workshop sessions will be offered on aspects of digital making, 
transmedia practice, interactive narratives, ambient literature and 
other related topics. Workshops are intended as a space to share 
innovative practice into the making of digital writing and related 
themes. We invite proposals from anyone interested in leading one of the 
workshops as part of this Call – see below for how to submit proposals 
for workshops.

The conference will also host the launch of the Special Issue of 
/Convergence: The International Journal of New Media Technologies/: 
‘Writing Digital: Practice, Performance, Theory’. This Special Issue 
arose from themes developed for MIX 2015. A new Call for Papers for an 
open access peer-reviewed journal issue will be launched at MIX 2017.
*
HOW TO SUBMIT PROPOSALS*

Abstracts of up to 300 words for a 20-minute paper or presentation or a 
90-minute workshop should be sent to *(mix /at/ bathspa.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(mix /at/ bathspa.ac.uk)>* by *Monday 30 January 2017*. The Abstract 
must be a separate Word, pdf or rtf file; the document name must be in 
the following format: Author Surname, Abstract Title, Type of Proposal 
(i.e. paper/presentation/workshop). The Abstract must stipulate which 
theme(s) the paper or presentation will address: revolution, 
regeneration, or reflection.

*CONFERENCE PRICING*

MIX 2017 Standard        £200
MIX 2017 Early Bird       £145
MIX 2017 Concession    £100

We guarantee all presenters the early bird price – until a final Call is 
issued in mid June. If they miss this, the registration goes up to standard.
Early bird ticket sales for non-presenters cut off mid-May.
The £100 concession is offered to independent practitioners, students, 
global South, and Bath Spa staff; it is available right up to the 
conference opening day.

*BOOKING*

For information about booking into the conference and accommodation, 
please go to the conference website at www.mixconference.org 
<http://www.mixconference.org>.

Bath Spa University Conference Committee: Co-Directors Kate Pullinger 
and Lucy English, Executive Producer Bambo Soyinka, Exhibition and 
MediaWall Producer Anthony Head, Event Producer Gavin Bower, Comms 
Producer Steve Hollyman, Workshop Producer Matthew Freeman, Exhibition 
and Admin Coordinator Abbi Cross.




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