[Commlist] CfP: Conference “Automation Culture: Intersections between Art, Automation, and Living Systems”

*Automation Culture: *

*Intersections between Art, Automation, and Living Systems*

Date: 17th-19th November 2023

Place: The University of Western Australia, Perth.

*Keynote*: Prof. Gunalan Nadarajan (University of Michigan)

**

*CFP Submission Deadline: March 6^th , 2023*

Since the dawn of mechanical automation there has been a desire to 
explore the creative potential of automated processes. Some of the most 
note-worthy examples of clockwork automata from the eighteenth century 
are figures who are made to perform ‘creative’ tasks, such as drawing, 
writing poetry, or playing a musical instrument. Even earlier, 
mechanical fountains depicted birds singing and in more recent times we 
see an interest in AI-generated art, or AI’s seemingly creative approach 
to games such as chess.

These fascinations are based on the assumption that automation is framed 
and usually discussed in the realm of the non-living that attempts 
either to emulate/mimic life-like properties such as movement, the 
appearance of sentiency/creativity, and metabolism, or express mechanic 
qualities that goes beyond the abilities of the living. When these 
categories are hybridised, troubled or blurred, automata seem both 
remarkable and unsettling.

This conference discusses thought experiments and case studies which 
metaphorically and literally transgress the relationship between art, 
automation and living systems (human and non-human), focusing on 
processes of automation in decision making, judgement, food systems, 
care-giving, and labour. By troubling the categories of art and 
automation, can we change the way we approach the increasing automation 
of life and culture?

The event will include papers, performances, workshops, and roundtables.

Topic areas may include but are not limited to:

•Animal Studies

•Biological Arts & Biodesign

•Biopolitics

•Cultural Studies and Literary Studies

•Economic History

•Environmental Humanities, Posthumanism and Extinction Studies

•Feminist, Queer, Race, Post-Colonial and Disability Studies

•History of Science

•History of Aesthetics

•Indigenous Futurisms

•Law and Technology studies

•Media Studies

•Musicology and Theatre and Film Studies

•Non-Human Biopolitics & Bioethics

•Philosophy and Ethics

•Political Theory and Political Philosophy

•Robotics and Computer Science

•Science, Technology and Society studies

•Science Fiction and Speculative Fabulations

•Synthetic Biology

•Transhumanism and AI

*Please send an abstract of 300 words to Sarah Collins: 
(sarah.collins /at/ uwa.edu.au) by March 6^th , 2023*. Presenters will be 
notified within three weeks past the deadline.

**

*Programme Committee*: Oron Catts, Sarah Collins, Elizabeth Stephens, 
Ionat Zurr

This conference is a part of a project exploring the cultural and 
intellectual history of automated labour, with support from the 
Australian Research Council (https://automationcultures.com/ 
<https://automationcultures.com/>).


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