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[ecrea] CFP Journal ICONO14 - Technopoïesis: transmedia mythologisation

Sun Sep 18 21:08:48 GMT 2016



     CFP Journal ICONO14: Technopoïesis: transmedia mythologisation.
URL: http://www.icono14.net
Editors: Francisco García and Manuel Gertrudix

Lines of research

- The socio-historical contextualization of early myths on innovation and technology in various parts of the world - Modern and postmodern myths: homeworlds-wonderworlds; public-private; industrial-postindustrial. - Machine behavior and cybernetics: myths of flow (time) vs. storage (localization); magical code and cryptography. - Humans, posthumans, transhumans: myths of inscription (intersubjective knowledge negotiation) and incorporation (actional mediation). Cyber and Android technology and mythology. - Myths and media combination, integration, re-mediation, transmedia rituals and other storyworlds. - Myths and the configuration of controversy and negotiation in the public sphere (private/public, personal/interpersonal, medial/intermedial, local/global, cultural/intercultural).
- Send proposals

To send your paper: Please go to http://www.icono14.net/ojs/index.php/icono14/about/submissions - onlineSubmissions and follow indications. - Deadline for full proposals: 15 October 2016 - Publication: January 2017 - Coordination: A. López-Varela Azcárate– Universidad Complutense de Madrid <(alopezva /at/ ucm.es)> Bio: https://www.ucm.es/siim/asun-lopez-varela and Henry Sussman. Visiting Professor at Dept. of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University. Bio:http://openhumanitiespress.org/feedback/

It is difficult to explain why different disciplines are drawn to similar problems. Connections are not always explainable by direct influence (i.e scientific paradigms upon the humanities). Rather, we argue that any common ground derives from the fact that people (artists, critics, scientists and so on) share certain kinds of everyday experiences. Although some scientists, such as William Whewell (1794-1866), or more recently Edward Wilson in his book Consilience (1998), have proclaimed the unification of knowledge between the different branches of learning, the so-called ‘hard sciences’ have remained skeptical about this awkward marriage with the (soft) ‘social sciences’ and the humanities. Despite the fact that methods of research and reasoning among various fields of knowledge are often different and even incompatible, the truth is that all human disciplines have evolved based on a unique basic premise: the way in which technology has gradually modified the nature of sign production, distribution and reception, and thus, the entire system of human thought, representation and culture.

Technology can be defined as a practical knowledge, engaged in the creation of tools and machines, as well as the development of techniques and methods of organization in order to perform specific functions in making human life easier. In the Western world, the term techne, derives from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Book VI, Ch. 3), a work where he discusses the five faculties of the soul required to attain truth: art (techné, skill), science (épistémè demonstrable knowledge), practical wisdom (phronesis), theoretical wisdom (sophia), and intelligence (nous). In chapter 4, Aristotle goes on to define techné as a trained capacity to make or produce through reason (logos); in other words, knowledge of specific principles and patterns. Techné (τέχνη) is, thus, frequently translated as “craft” or “art” in its meaning of the systematic use of knowledge for intelligent human action. Art is the means through which this systemic method is transferred, and the products brought via techné differ from things produced by nature (physis), and they are also different from things produced by chance (tuche). Although some degree of épistémè seems to be involved in techné, in Book VII chapter 3 Aristotle indicates that the goal of techné is a productive state which includes conceptualization and pragmatism.

In order to frame the “operative fiction” between the various forms of knowledge, papers submitted should expand the ideas of the Greek mythographer Euhemerus and those of Roland Barthes who believed that myths were assumptions and narratives about social issues that had become naturalized. Frequently, myths involve initiation journeys, sacred rituals, technological weapons and artifacts belonging to powerful figures, whether in Greco-Roman mythology (i.e. Hephaestus, Prometheus, Zeus, Athena, Heracles/Hercules, Daedalus or Eidyia) as well as in other ancient cultures (i.e. the Egyptian Thoth and Isis, , the biblical ark of covenant, the Celtic Green Knight, the Norse Odin and Thor, the Brahmastra, the Pashapatrastra, and the tools and powers of Indra or Ganesha in Hindu mythology, those of the Japanese Koya-no-Myoin, or the Chinese Wenchang Wang and the story of Lieh Tsu by Lieh Yü Khow; see work by Kevin La Grandeur at the New York Institute of Technology). Sometimes, myths involve processes of metamorphosis and change, such as those in alchemy and in the first natural philosophies. Myth making also takes place in modernity and postmodernity, in many cases associated to inventions, like those by Leonardo da Vinci or Jules Verne, as well as those by scientists like Nikola Tesla, and even contemporary science-fiction aliens and cyber-mythical figures like Robocop, Terminator or George Lucas’s character Darth Vader. In all of these narratives, myths refer to technologies as both tools and activities that transform social and natural environments, affecting human as well as other species, and thus involving issues of power, communication, exploitation of environmental resources, sustainability, ethics and so on.
     Manuel Gertrudix Barrio
Journal ICONO14
www.icono14.net
(Info /at/ icono14.net)
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