21.389 events: Second Life workshop; Cultural Attitudes Toward Technology and Communication

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 21, No. 389.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

   [1] From: "Charles Baldwin" <Charles.Baldwin_at_mail.wvu.edu> (53)
         Subject: Second Life workshop with Alan Sondheim and Sandy
                 Baldwin

   [2] From: sudweeks_at_murdoch.edu.au (105)
         Subject: CFP: Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and
                 Communication (CATaC'08)

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:03:54 +0000
         From: "Charles Baldwin" <Charles.Baldwin_at_mail.wvu.edu>
         Subject: Second Life workshop with Alan Sondheim and Sandy Baldwin

The workshop below is being held on Saturday,
December 8, 2pm London time as part of _Intimacy:
Across Visceral and Digital Performance_, at
Goldsmith's College, University of London. If you
are interested in more information or in
participating, email Sandy Baldwin at charles.baldwin_at_mail.wvu.edu.

SECOND LIFE WORKSHOP: AVATAR PASTE AND CODE SOUP
IN FIRST AND SECOND LIFE Leaders: SANDY BALDWIN,
West Virginia University & ALAN SONDHEIM

This workshop will take place in the virtual
world Second Life, and will be conducted by Alan
Sondheim and Sandy Baldwin, with participation by
other artists and performers in Second Life.

Participants from the Intimacy conference will be
supplied with location and others details within
Second Life. The workshop emerges from Sondheim
and Baldwin's ongoing exploration of analog and
digital bodies, using a range of technologies to
remap the solid and obdurate real of bodies into
the dispersions and virtualities of the digital,
and then back again into real physical spaces.
The "avatar paste" of the title means at least three things.

Firstly, the pasting of viewpoints together, the
suturing of the subject into the avatar.
Secondly, paste as glue, as half-liquid and half
solid, as a materiality of renewable and infinite
pliability. This is the chora of the avatar, the
body matrix that is less a framework than a
smearing of paste. And thirdly, paste as pasty
and dis/comfortable substance, paste as slimy and
dripping. While this abjection is already
implicit in paste as glue, the pastiness of paste
involves the projection and dreaming through of
the avatar, the inhabitation of avatar bodies and
the emptying of real bodies into the avatar.

"Avatar paste" comes out in avatar motions and
behaviors. Firstly, these are formed by symbolic
orders, presenting surfaces to read in terms of
sexuality, power, emotion, and other projections.
At the same time, the pasty avatar body tends
towards collapse and abjection. Work on the
avatar becomes a choreography of exposure and
rupture, modeling and presenting inconceivable
and untenable data, within which tensions and
relationships are immediate and intimate. One
might imagine, then, this inconceivable data as a
form of organism itself: as part of a natural
world or a world already given; out of this we
might think through new ideas of landscape,
wilderness, hard ecology, the earth itself.

The workshop will theorize and demonstrate these
topics. The first part discusses theoretical
frameworks.Alan Sondheim will discuss topics of
dismemberment, telepresence, and abjection in
relation to the motion and behavior of Second
Life avatars. Sandy Baldwin will discuss the
topography of limits in Second Life, both body
limits and spatial limits, an connect this to
issues of the hunt and animal display.

He will also discuss the dynamics of performance
and audience in Second Life. The second part of
the workshop will show off Sondheim and Baldwin's
approach to re-mapping live bodies into Second
Life performances, including: video and other
examples of motion capture and scanning;
intermediate processing of files (e.g. editing
.bvh data or working with Blender); and then the
resulting works, including documents of Second
Life performances and re-mappings back into
"first life" spaces with dancers and other live
performers. The final part of the workshop will
include avatar performance by Sondheim, Baldwin,
and other participants in Second Life.

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:07:49 +0000
         From: sudweeks_at_murdoch.edu.au
         Subject: CFP: Cultural Attitudes towards
Technology and Communication (CATaC'08)

CALL FOR PAPERS

ICTs Bridging Cultures? Theories, Obstacles, Best Practices
6th International Conference on Cultural
Attitudes towards Technology and Communication (CATaC08)

24-27 June 2008
Universite de Nîmes, France
Conference languages: English and French
www.catacconference.org

The biennial CATaC conference series - 10 years
old in 2008! - provides a premier international
forum for current research on how diverse
cultural elements shape the implementation and
use of information and communication technologies
(ICTs). The conference series brings together
scholars from around the globe who provide
diverse cultural and disciplinary perspectives in
their presentations and discussions of the
conference theme and topics (listed below).

Nîmes, inhabited by Celts since the 4th ct.
B.C.E., became a Gallo-Roman city in 18 BCE, and
is home to some of the best-preserved examples of
Roman engineering and architecture. The Pont de
Gard, an aquaduct bridge across the Gard river,
serves as our primary metaphor for CATaC 2008:
ICTs as technologies bridging cultures. Our
venue in multi-cultural Nîmes further provides us
with a number of cultural experiences and
pleasures unique to the South of France. Finally,
CATaC 2008 emphasizes francophone participation
in a number of ways, including, translation
provided for abstracts in French and English, and
for questions and answers following presentations.

Original full papers (especially those which
connect theoretical frameworks with specific
examples of cultural values, practices, etc.) and
short papers (e.g. describing current research
projects and preliminary results) are invited.

TOPICS include but are not limited to:
- Language as a core issue in cultural diversity
with IT: are languages shaping a new IT world?
- CMC as fostering and/or threatening cultural diversity
- Theoretical and practical approaches to
analyzing "culture" and its impact on the use and implementation of ICTs
- ICTs in the francophone world, including:
influences of francophone usages globally and cross-cultural comparisons
- Beyond glocalization and homogenization: new
mixtures of identities and cultures as facilitated by ICTs
- Empowerment and CMC, including issues of
gender, languages and power (economic, political, social)
- Values, ethics, justice, and ICTS
- Cultural and linguistic diversity and e-learning

SUBMISSIONS
All submissions will be peer reviewed by an
international panel of scholars and researchers.
Accepted papers will appear in the conference
proceedings. Submission of a paper implies that
it has not been submitted or published elsewhere.
At least one author of each accepted paper is
expected to present the paper at the conference.

Schedule:
- Full papers (maximum 15 formatted pages) - 14 January 2008
- Short and panel papers (3-5 formatted pages) - 21 January 2008
- Notification of acceptance - mid February 2008
- Final formatted papers - 28 February 2008

The review process will be handled electronically
through a review system, linked to the conference
website. Papers may be submitted in either French
or English. We strongly encourage submissions to
include abstracts both in French and English,
since accepted papers will be published in the
Proceedings with abstracts in both languages. We
will translate abstracts if necessary. Accepted
papers must be formatted according to the
conference proceedings template (download from www.catacconference.org).

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
The keynote speakers are Marie-Françoise
Narcy-Combes, University of Nantes, and Jean-Paul
Narcy-Combes, University of Paris 3-Sorbonne
Nouvelle. Their topic is "Local Eyes for Global
Vision: Can human intelligence and technology help?"

PANELS
The program includes a number of panels:
- Culture and psychology (Chair: Professor
Alexander Voiskounsky, Moscow State University, Russia)
- Beyond Hall, Hofstede, and 'Culture' (Chairs:
Connie Kampf, University of Aarhus, Denmark and
Jose Abdelnour-Nocera, Thames Valley University, UK)
(Additional panel proposals will be considered.)

ACCOMMODATION
Accommodation details are on the conference
website. Be aware that Nîmes is a very popular
vacation destination in June and July so
accommodation will need to be booked as early as possible.

SPONSORS
Universite de Nîmes
Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres de Montpellier
Institut Universitaire de Technologie de Bèziers

CONFERENCE CHAIRS
   Charles Ess, Drury University, USA, catac_at_it.murdoch.edu.au
   Fay Sudweeks, Murdoch University, Australia, catac_at_it.murdoch.edu.au

CONFERENCE VICE CHAIR
   Marie-Christine Deyrich, IUFM de Montpellier,
   France, marie-christine.deyrich_at_montpellier.iufm.fr

PROGRAM CHAIR
   Herbert Hrachovec, University of Vienna, Austria
Received on Tue Dec 04 2007 - 03:43:21 EST