[ecrea] CFP - Cultures of participation in Aarhus

Call for Papers

CULTURES OF PARTICIPATION - ARTS, DIGITAL MEDIA AND POLITICS

International conference,
April 18-20, 2018
Aarhus University, Denmark

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Shannon Jackson
Professor of Rhetoric and of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, 
University of California, Berkeley
José van Dijck
Professor of Comparative Media Studies, University of Amsterdam Lisanne 
Gibson
Associate Professor, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester


Cultures of Participation - Arts, Digital Media and Politics

Over the last decade cultural participation and cultures of 
participation have received increased (and renewed) attention within 
different academic disciplines, cultural institutions and societal 
sectors - and over time also more critical reflection. On policy levels, 
citizen participation and engagement are emphasized as key components of 
democratic societies and these policies are currently being practiced 
and put to work at cultural institutions and cultural houses, in 
artistic production, in architectural and urban 'smart city' designs and 
various digital media spaces. But what are the characteristics of 
cultural participation and how do these manifest themselves in cultures 
of participation?
In order to provide a multifaceted take on the subject, the conference 
is organized around three themes, which each addresses the topic from 
different standpoints: 1)	Participatory art & aesthetics
2)	Digital media & technology
3)	3) Cultural policy & participation.
The conference aims to discuss the potentials and problems of cultural 
participation by bringing these important, but often disconnected 
research fields into dialogue with each other. The conference will 
include theoretical and methodological interventions, as well as case 
studies that develop processes from theory and policy to concrete 
implementations.


Theme 1: Participatory art and aesthetics

A 200-year long tradition in aesthetics understands the relation between 
art and intersubjectivity as a matter of participating in an abstract 
and imagined community. In the last 50 years this tradition has, 
however, been criticized for its focus on a reflective judgement, 
elevated above the body and the social/material contexts of the 
aesthetic experience. In contemporary aesthetics and cultural studies, 
the relation between art and community is often understood in more 
concrete terms involving body, affect, power, materiality, and time- and 
site-specific context.

This orientation towards more concrete and tangible communities has been 
reinforced since the 'social turn' in art and aesthetics in the 1990's. 
In contemporary art, there is strong interest in participatory art 
practices that both transform the role of the 'recipient' and engage art 
more directly in society. Still, we need to investigate the link between 
modes of discursive and/or embodied participation in art practices, in 
temporary publics and more stable communities, and in social, material 
and political life. In aesthetic theory, two ways of conceptualizing 
this link has been dominant. One has focused on art's ability to create 
micro-utopian communities, another on the ability to question already 
given identities and communities. But in between these two, a wide 
variety of participatory art practices unfold in more complex registers. 
We therefore welcome papers that explore the challenges and potentials 
of participatory and socially engaged art practices. This might include:

-	Case studies of art's engagement in the challenges of concrete 
communities and debates about how this (not) relates to more abstract 
communities
-	Critical analysis of how participatory artistic practices generate new 
bodily or discursive blockages and openings
-	Critical analysis of how participatory art challenge or interact with 
material or institutional framings
-	Theoretical debates about the role of participatory art in promoting 
intersubjectivity, community and democratization
-	Studies in digitized participatory cultures' implications for artistic 
practices
-	Exploration of participatory art's political and prefigurative potential

Theme 2: Digital media and technology
Historically the arrival of new media technologies has often stimulated 
cultural fantasies of more intense forms of engagement or inclusion of 
(previously excluded) voices and producers. In the 1930's Walter 
Benjamin as an example argued that technological reproducibility would 
facilitate a shift towards citizen participation by allowing 'the 
people' to write and be published in newspapers or appear on photos or 
in films. With the rise of the internet - and especially social media 
platforms based on user generated content - the fantasy of the 
participatory citizen, supported by the affordances of rising media 
technologies, was once again activated and linked to high hopes of 
creating more diverse, democratic and engaged public spheres. Early 
internet scholars thus discussed this medium on the premises of citizen 
engagement and empowerment, frequently using hybrid terms such as 
prosumers, produsers, interactive audience, creative audience and 
productive enthusiasts.

But more recent work in the field has acknowledged that digitized 
participatory cultures cannot be separated from their technological 
infrastructures and platforms, which always facilitate certain - and 
block other - forms of participation. It has also stressed the fact that 
social media create invisible forms of 'participation by default' where 
users are forced to contribute to the accumulation of data used to shape 
future communication with strategic or economic goals. Instead of 
celebrating participative read/write cultures and making-and-doing 
cultures, these voices emphasize elements such as data mining, 
surveillance, privacy breaches, digital labour and excessive 
communication without communicability.
This strand will acknowledge the tensions between different notions of 
(digital) media participation and invite contributions to discuss these 
from different perspectives. These include:

-	Critical analysis on how media technologies facilitate, and at the 
same time condition, citizens' participation and how this relates to 
cultural institutions' use of established media technologies, such as 
social media. -	Contributions on the emancipatory/empowering use of 
media technologies and/or critical aspects concerning citizens' use of 
media technologies
-	Theoretical explorations on changes in power dynamics between users of 
digital technologies and professional workers in cultural institutions
-	Case based studies that focus on how technologies condition the 
participative potentials of users and how users' participation is shaped 
by platforms' algorithmic logics
-	Studies on the global/local challenges when facilitating participation 
on commercial social media as well as studies on the institutional 
challenges when encouraging participation on established social media 
platforms.


Theme 3: Cultural policy and participation
The participatory agenda has held a significant place in cultural 
theory, policy and practice since the millennium. One can understand 
this as driven by a growing "participatory culture" that enables new 
forms of user involvement and introduces a potential for cultural 
institutions to become more relevant, social, democratic, accessible and 
to reach out to more diverse audiences. Or one can understand it as 
driven by failings in the cultural sector to reach these diverse 
audiences and challenge the correlation between participation in arts 
and socio-economic position.
In any case, the agenda has changed the framework that cultural 
institutions work within. Cultural policy makers have introduced new 
funding structures, research opportunities, institutional contracts and 
quality parameters for recipients of public money to address what is 
seen as a participation potential and/or deficit. Cultural institutions 
answer to this ambivalent agenda by developing participatory strategies 
and projects, documenting visitor numbers and demographics, and 
measuring effect. In doing this they often relate to the participation 
agenda from a range of other perspectives, e.g. in contemporary art, 
democratic theory, learning theories and digital media.
There is, however a long list of cultural policy issues in relation to 
institutional practice and cultural participation, which needs to be 
addressed, discussed and analyzed. We therefore welcome papers that 
address the participation agenda in cultural policy and cultural 
institutions. This might include:

-	Critical analysis of the relationship between cultural policy and 
practice -	Case studies of participatory initiatives that examine the 
challenges practitioners face
-	Theoretical debates about the role of cultural policy and/or 
institutions in promoting democratization of culture or cultural democracy
-	Exploration of digitized participatory cultures and their implications 
for creative copyright and/or cultural institutions
-	The politics of data capture on participation in the cultural sector 
and new forms of measurement


Practical information
For the conference, we invite papers from across broad fields of 
studies, such as art and aesthetics, cultural studies, media studies, 
architecture, design, sociology, political science & anthropology. We 
also invite contributions from actors working with citizen participation 
in arts, media and/or politics - e.g. in cultural institutions, media 
platforms or cultural policy.
Please submit your abstract proposal (max 300 words) and a short bio 
(max 100 words) to (culturesofparticipation2018 /at/ cc.au.dk) no later than 5 
January 2018. We welcome individual papers as well as panels with three 
or four contributors.  We will notify authors of paper acceptance no 
later than 21 January.

Registration - including payment of a conference fee - is due on 18 
February 2018.
More information about the conference, registration, accommodation, 
travel and other practicalities is (and will be) posted on the 
conference website http://conferences.au.dk/culturesofparticipation2018/
 For questions regarding the conference (abstracts, registration or 
other), please contact (culturesofparticipation2018 /at/ cc.au.dk)
 The conference is organized by Take Part - Research Network on 
Cultural Participation http://projekter.au.dk/en/take-part/
Conference organizers
Birgit Eriksson, Associate Professor and director of Take Part, Aarhus 
University, Denmark,
Bjarki Valtysson, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Carsten Stage, Associate Professor, Aarhus University, Denmark
Mette Houlberg Rung, art educator, PhD, National Gallery of Denmark
Nina Gram, researcher at A Suitcase of Methods, PhD, The Royal Danish 
Theatre
Leila Jancovich, Lecturer in cultural policy and participation, 
University of Leeds, UK


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