College Art Association (25-28 Feb, 2009, LA)

The Human Futures book will be available at this major event for professionals in the visual arts, taking place in Los Angeles. A number of our contributors is speaking here Eduardo Kac and Paul Thomas:

Wednesday, February 25, 9:30 AM–12:00 PM Concourse Meeting Room 406AB, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center

The Makrolab and Luminous Green: New Formations of the Collective Marko Peljhan, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts, University of California, Santa Barbara  (images in HF)

Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology Shifting Paradigms in Media Art, Science, and Technology Education in a Global Context Friday, February 27, 5:30 PM–7:00 PM

The Contextualization of Art in Expanding Areas of Research Paul Thomas (images in HF)

Database Aesthetics: Artists sorting through Bits & Flesh Saturday, February 28, 9:30 AM–12:00 PM Concourse Meeting Room 406B, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center Chair: Victoria Vesna, University of California, Los Angeles

Time Capsule Eduardo Kac, School of the Art Institute of Chicago  (Essay and Images in HF)

Cosmetic Cultures (2009, June 24-26, Leeds, UK)

In one of the Chapters of the Human Futures book, Professor Sandra Kemp discusses modifications of the face. This conference looks like it covers some of this ground and looks like a really interesting meet: Cosmetic Cultures to be held in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at the University of Leeds from the 24 to 26 of June 2009.

Papers on any element of ‘cosmetic cultures’ are welcomed but the conference seeks to move beyond well rehearsed ‘Beauty Myth’ arguments.

Beauty has often been conceptualised as the concern only of women (or the only concern of women!) and as idealised in ‘whiteness’or ‘Westerness’. Whilst many have found significant evidence to support these claims, work in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies has already flagged up the importance of men, masculinities and beauty, both in the ‘West’ and ‘East’ and has disrupted the idea that whiteness alone presents idealised beauty in all parts of the world, or even in this one. Whilst beauty ideals may be important in one sense, this conference also aims to explore beauty practices. The subject’s engagement in beauty practices may be ‘transformative’ in line with current ideals, and undertaken in the clinic, or it may be everyday and mundane, practices in the home or ‘salon’.

Themes will include:

National beauty cultures and histories and the intersection between local and globalised ideals; Beauty practice ranging from ‘spectacular’ makeover cosmetic surgery to mundane beauty technologies such as diet and exercise, skin tanning/ lightening, hairstyling, hair removal and tattooing/piercing. Intersections of ‘race’, class, gender and beauty cultures and practices; men, masculinities and beauty; LGBI and Trans beauties; surgical tourism; TV makeover shows; Work in the ‘beauty industry’, including medical practices and cultures, beauty salons and cosmetics marketing and manufacture as well as (fashion and glamour) modelling.

By encouraging participants to explore beauty cultures, practices and politics in their broadest sense we hope to advance current debates and develop an international network of researchers.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

* Professor Carolyn Cooper - University of the West Indies * Professor Kathy Davis - University of Utrecht * Dr Debra Gimlin - University of Aberdeen * Dr Meredith Jones - University of Technology, Sydney * Professor Toby Miller - University of California, Riverside * Professor Elspeth Probyn - University of Sydney

200 word abstracts and panel suggestions should be emailed to: Matthew Wilkinson at m.wilkinson@leeds.ac.uk  no later than 1 March 2009. Please mark all emails with ‘Cosmetic Cultures’ in the subject line.

For further info, visit the conference website: http://www.wun.ac.uk/genderstudies/leeds_2009/main.html

Best wishes

Andy Burnham MP

New PhD studentships

Deadline for applications is 12 January, 2009: http://www.uws.ac.uk/research/MediaStudentships.asp

Finally, here are the project outlines:

Blogging the Vancouver 2010 Olympics (Ref.PHDMLM003) Director of Studies: Dr Andy Miah Research into the new media dimensions of an Olympic Games has become a focal point for researchers in recent years. Sports governing bodies have also responded to the rise of new media, as a distinct reporting form within the organizational framework of a mega-event. For instance, for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the television rights contracts were separated from internet broadcast rights for the first time in history. Also, in February 2008, the International Olympic Committee provided extensive blogging guidelines for the first time, which affect all accredited persons at the Games, including athletes. Additionally, a remarkable number of citizen journalists is visible at recent Games and their capacity and entitlement to report on the proceedings is a much more contested set of circumstances. As traditional media outlets rush to converge and consolidate their online presence, questions arise as to the contribution of dominant social networking platforms to the construction of the Games-time narrative. Evidence suggests that organizations are making strategic decisions to affect these conditions. For instance, in March 2007, the BBC purchased a You Tube Channel. Alternatively, in August 2008, the IOC signed agreements to broadcast parts of the Olympic Games on You Tube to countries where no television broadcast license was in place. This PhD studentship will focus on the Olympic Winter Games of Vancouver 2010 to study how a range of new media is infiltrating the Olympic infrastructure. It will seek to contextualize the new media culture of Vancouver 2010 within a series of cultural and political issues that have surrounded the lead-up to its Winter Olympics.

Candidates should have a higher degree and particular expertise in qualitative research methods and social media.

Prospects of immortality: public engagement with Biogerontology and life/health span expansion (Ref.PHDMLM004)

Due to its broad application to a number of other sciences, biogerontology is one of the most relevant fields of inquiry today. It speaks to the convergence of the NBIC sciences and to the redefinition of health care that arises by describing ageing as a disease to be cured, rather than a natural process to accept. Biogerontology engages us with the prospect of extending health or life span to an unknown degree and, as such, it is a controversial discipline. Over the last ten years, work in this area has shifted from scientific impossibility to becoming a core part of scientific endeavour. A range of media coverage, from aspersion to fascination, has accompanied this shift. In the literature on public understanding of science, there is no research yet attending to this distinct, but profound area of scientific inquiry. As such, this PhD studentship aims to explore the following questions:

* How has biogerontology been articulated though the media? * What issues surround the political economy of research into life-extension? * How do different research communities orientate themselves around the various media narratives on life-extension? * How do journalists report research on biogerontology? * What can be learned from this subject area to broadly inform work into science communication?

Candidates should have a higher degree in science communication and qualitative research methods in media sociology.

Director of Studies Andy Miah External Adviser: Aubrey de Grey

The ethics of human enhancement in film (Ref.PHDMLM005)

Studies in the ethics of human enhancement have advanced considerably in the last five years through the emergence of new communities of scholarly inquiry. A number of scientific disciplines have been brought under the spotlight due to their likely use for lifestyle, non-therapeutic purposes. The connections between filmic narratives and bioethics are made manifest in recent cultural studies and can be linked to broader, literary origins. Yet, there is very little research that investigates the range of narratives that emerge on the ethics of human enhancement within film. This absence affects the degree of complexity that is brought to how such debates are played out in the media and in policy. This PhD explores the contribution of film to such imaginations and aims to add complexity to our understanding of how film conveys such alterations. It should also help us understand how film functions as a posthuman device of expressing humanly experiences, such as process of remembering, perceiving and the possible disruption of sensory encounters. It also aims to explore the limitations of cultural reference points within scientific policy making on the ethics of human enhancements, exploring the range of metaphors, analogies and stories that contribute to shaping the public understanding of science.

Candidates should have a higher degree and particular expertise in film theory and technological fiction.

Director of Studies: Andy Miah

Transmediale

Lots of content at this festival that is discussed in Human Futures.

transmediale is an international festival for contemporary art and digital culture. Located in Berlin, it presents advanced artistic positions reflecting on the socio-cultural impact of new technologies. It seeks out artistic practices that not only respond to scientific or technical developments, but that try to shape the way in which we think about and experience these technologies. transmediale understands media technologies as cultural techniques which need to be embraced in order to comprehend, critique, and shape our contemporary society.

The festival includes exhibitions, competitions, conferences, film and video programmes, live performances and a publication series called 'transmediale parcours'. Moreover it cooperates with club transmediale (CTM), which deals with electronic music and club culture.

FESTIVAL Each year in January & February, transmediale presents renowned artists, scientists and media practitioners from all around the world. Through each year’s specific theme, the participants engage with a wide international audience and examine global developments in digital media, art and technology.

The competition for the transmediale Awards is one of the festival’s highlights. With an average of 1000 submissions from more than 50 countries, the competition demonstrates transmediale’s increasing international significance. Each year, two awards are granted, the transmediale Award for artistic distinction and the Vilém Flusser Theory Award for outstanding theory or research-based digital arts practice.

The exhibition works alongside architects to present curated works of renowned artists, as well as a selection of the submissions for the transmediale Awards, within a unique cultural space. Every second year, the exhibition is curated externally and shown for a prolonged period of four to six weeks.

The conferences and workshops present a series of scientific and cultural discourses on the respective festival theme. In recent years, speakers such as Diedrich Diedrichsen, Wulf Herzogenrath, Humberto Maturana, Antonio Negri, Stellarc, Einar Thorsteinn or Peter Weibel have given keynote addresses.

The film and video programme encompasses a wide, contemporary spectrum of feature films, short artistic video works and special programmes, all presented on the big screen. The 'transmediale video selection', a compilation of the best screenings, is shown all around the globe each year.

The performance programme presents cross-disciplinary projects in the fields of installation, sound, performance and video on stage, showcasing the search for new forms of expression between artistic genres. The transmediale parcours is the latest in a line of transmediale publications that have established themselves throughout the last 20 years as widely sought-after guides to contemporary digital, media and technology-based art and culture. Expanding upon this tradition, the transmediale parcours was launched in 2008 to reflect upon the research as well as artistic and critical backgrounds behind each festival’s theme.