ReadMe Three

August 2004, Aarhus, Denmark

Dear all!

Below is the info on the conference we'll have as a part of the next READ_ME software art festival (last week of August 2004, Aarhus, Denmark).If you're into writing, consider submitting a text yourself

If not, forward it to your friend, colleague, mailing list -- or any entity that might be interested

And more info on Runme-Dorkbot city camp (yes!) will follow later in January.

Thanks and Cheers!

And Happy Christmas and New Year!

Olga

READ_ME 2004

software art festival

Software Art and Cultures Conference and Runme-Dorkbot
City Camp

The third edition of the Read_Me software art festival will be held at the end of August 2004 in Aarhus, Denmark. Read_me 2004 will consist of the conference at Aarhus University and the city camp organized by two friendly entities: Runme.org and Dorkbot. The conference and the city camp will be held consecutively.

This is an announcement concerning the Software Art and Cultures conference. The information on the Runme-Dorkbot city camp will follow later.

Software Art and Cultures conference aims to provide an opportunity for people researching software art and culture to share their findings. The art movement known by the name "software art" has been active for a few years, and similar phenomena under different names have been developed and researched for a few decades. It is our belief that there is a sufficient body of thinking in this and related areas taking place that there should be a platform for aiding further discovery and enrichment.

Software art is a practice that regards software as a cultural phenomenon that defines one of the significant aspects of our lives today. Thus, software is not regarded as an invisible layer, but rather as a significant entity contributing to reproduction or change of certain orders, whether aesthetic, cultural, social or political. Software art creatively questions and redefines software and its ways of functioning.

Software art embraces a wide range of practices: from formalist experiments with code and its execution to software manipulation that does not require any specific knowledge, from alternative tools built from scratch to add-ons and deconstructions, from real software to projects not written in programming languages at all, but which deal with issues relevant to software criticism or culture. Software art deals with a wide range of topics, including social, political, and aesthetic issues. In many cases, it addresses and becomes part of software culture itself.

Software cultures -- cultures generated by programmers, designers and software users -- are generous sources of thinking on digital culture and society. Software cultures define the way software is created and functions, thus influencing the composition and function of the basic infrastructures of digital society. In this way, software cultures become inseparable (though largely underestimated) from the forms digital work, social institutions and cultural manifestations take today. Software cultures initiate social change, act in political spheres, create and discover new artistic realms and methodologies.

The conference encourages participation of specialists in various disciplines: multi-disciplinary researchers including non-academics, art theorists, and other thinkers and learners interested in the effects of software and software cultures on art, culture, and society - and in ways to analyze them and challenge existing patterns.

This is a call for submissions of abstracts (up to 2500 characters). Authors of accepted abstracts will be asked to submit the full paper before 1 of June, 2004 (up to 25000 characters) and present it during the conference. The papers will be published prior to the conference. We aim to provide grants for travel and lodging for speakers without institutional backing.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 of March, 2004

Deadline for notification of acceptance: 1 of April, 2004

Abstracts may be submitted to: Olga Goriunova and Soeren Pold

Organized by: Read_Me, Digital Aesthetics Research Centre (www.digital-aestetik.dk) (Aarhus University), Det Jyske Kunstakademi (The Jutland Academy of Fine Arts), Runme.org, Dorkbot.

Supported by: IT-Vest, Aarhus Kommune