Call for papers about visual future

Dear rhizome.org subscribers,
please kindly read and spread this call for papers for a conference on media art and theory in Berlin, February 2008:

/// Call for papers ///

«Yet Another Media Conference»

What is the future of moving image?

Every media student knows about the ambivalence of their topic. When telling their friends about university, the next sentence of their counterpart often is “And what is it exactly you do?”. The term “media” is getting more and more important in our societies, because everybody knows that the environment is full of them. But what is media theory and what can it do in our reality?

The international short film festival EMERGEANDSEE and the Institute of European Media Studies from the University of Potsdam and the University of Applied Sciences want to close a gap and together they found «Yet Another Media Conference». In 2008 the conference focuses on the future of moving image and turns the Kino babylon berlin:mitte for two days into a bustling campus.

Everyone knows films. Be it on a cinema screen, be it on YouTube. Visual Art is known by everyone. Media Theory is not, although it is just as important. Therefore «Yet Another Media Conference» joins international universities, to discuss, to show, to explain, to learn and to broaden the horizon. EMERGEANDSEE sees a necessity for an international exchange between media professors, theorists, philosophers, artists, practitioners and students. We want to start a discussion in which students play a major role as they are the people that will form tomorrow's theory and praxis.

EMERGEANDSEE collects and shows young creative moving images since 2000. At our short film festivals, we bring the public the best visual ideas from media and design academies around the world. Filmed or animated, narrative or artistic - EMERGEANDSEE shows innovative ideas.

For «Yet Another Media Conference» EMERGEANDSEE is searching for media theorists and practitioners who want to present and discuss their thoughts on visuality. Anything that concerns the aesthetics, formats, concepts and genres of moving images is welcome. We would like to create a connection between work and reflection. Apart from that, the topic of the conference is kept deliberately broad, in order to create a vivid forum and to allow many different views. «Yet Another Media Conference» takes place 4-6 February 2008 in Berlin, alongside our film festival. The event is held a few days before the Berlinale, because we would like to offer our guests the opportunity to visit the biggest German film festival after some days of discussion and reception of innovative and young work.

If you can contribute your work concerning visual media, including but not limited to

* short narratives
* analog vs. digital aesthetics
* technical convergence/convergence of genres
* future distribution

please send us an abstract of your presentation until 1 November 2007. Panels at the conference should consist of 20 to 30 minutes of presentation and 20 minutes of discussion.

There are plans for a publication after the conference, most possibly a collection of the presented papers. Please send your abstracts as .pdf, .doc or plain text to [email protected]. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Till Claassen at [email protected]

Festival homepage: www.emergeandsee.org

European Media Studies: www.emw.eu