The Network as a Space and Medium for Collaborative Interdisciplinary Art Practice

I’m organizing a small conference, The Network as a Space and Medium for Collaborative Interdisciplinary Art Practice in Bergen, which will take place from November 8-10 at UiB and at Landmark Café. The gathering is focused on the increasing use of the network as a space and medium for collaborative interdisciplinary art practices including electronic literature and other network-based art forms. Researchers will present papers exploring new network-based creative practices that involve the cooperation of small to large-scale groups of writers, artists, performers, and programmers to create online projects that defy simple generic definitions and disciplinary boundaries. Panel topics (abstracts) include:

• Social Networks and Networked Cultural Practices
• The Evolving Cultural Landscape of Electronic Literature
• Remix Culture, Machinima, and Mash-ups
• Interdisciplinary Approaches to Producing Interactive Audiovisual Art Forms
• Collective Narratives Online, and
• Approaches to “Close Reading” and “Close Writing” Digital Artifacts

The seminar will be organized by the LLE Digital Culture group, which has invited contributions from about 20 international researchers and artists. In addition to the scholarly seminar Nov. 9th and 10th at the University of Bergen, two evening programs will take place Nov. 8th and 9th at Landmark Café at Bergen Kunsthall, to showcase innovative work (performance descriptions) and will be open to the public. Anyone interested in attending can register on the conference site. We will also be filming the performances, and intend to make some version of those recordings publicly available after the event. As with the Electronic Literature in Europe conference we held here at UiB last year, which helped to strengthen a European electronic literature network, it is my hope that this conference will serve to help build new relationships and strengthen connections between artists, writers, and researchers working in different aspects of collaborative interdisciplinary network-based art, and to suggest some directions for future creative activities and research. It should also be a good deal of fun. I’m looking forward to it.