theorizing the web

As many of you already know, the Cyborgology editors decided to throw a conference called Theorizing the Web. The conference will be in College Park, MD (just outside of Washington, D.C.) on April 9th. Today we are excited to announce the program for the conference and attach a flier that we hope you all can distribute to those who you think might be interested.

As you will see, the response was terrific. We built 14 panels out of the 56 papers we accepted (from the over 100 submissions). There will be three invited panels (on feminist activism, race, and methods). There will be two symposia (one on the role of social media in the Arab uprisings and another on social media and street art). There will be two plenaries (one by Saskia Sassen and another by George Ritzer). And we are excited to have danah boyd deliver our keynote.

If that was not enough, we have plenty of art-related surprises in store for those who attend. We have invited artists of all types to display and perform art specifically tailored to the themes of the conference. This will be one busy carnivalesque day for those who love technology and/or theory!

The program is found here: http://www.cyborgology.org/theorizingtheweb/program.html

Last, a flier for the conference [.pdf here]. Please distribute widely!

TtW2011 Flyer

The abstract submission deadline for the Cyborgology “Theorizing the Web 2011” conference had been extended to February 20th.  Submit here.  Registration also now open.

The Cyborgology editors dropped in on artist Jonathan Monaghan‘s studio to discuss his art and how it relates to technology and our contemporary world.

The impetus for my animation “Life Tastes Good” was seeing different depictions of polar bears on television. If they are selling soda, they are having a great time, if they are illustrating climate change, they are dying slow painful deaths. I decided to mix this disparate imagery into a new schizophrenic reality using the same 3d animation tools as those Coke commercials. These alternate digital realities I create in my work are both familiar and alien; playing with our desires, dreams and anxiety.

Jonathan Monaghan’s work is art in the age of hyperreality. Baudrillard offered hyperreality as a bloated, obese and dying environment liquidated of meaning, and here we see the simulated polar bear literally expiring on the screen. Monaghan has turned the simulated polar bear against itself by reintroducing it to the real. more...