http://anarchiststudies.org/node/146

The eighth edition of the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition (RAT)
conference, sponsored by the Institute for Anarchist Studies, once
again aims to provide a participatory and scholarly space in which to
reexamine, reinvigorate, and make relevant the social and political
tradition of anarchism.

Each year, RAT brings together anarchists, anti-authoritarians, and
libertarians who want to critically engage both the tradition itself
and the world in which we live. Participants and presenters at the
conference thereby contribute to developing a more rigorous
contemporary theoretical framework for anarchism as well as a
stronger basis from which anti-authoritarian movements can organize
and resist.

In a historical moment characterized overwhelmingly by war,
exploitation, forced displacement, dispossession, and environmental
devastation, it might seem strange to spend a peaceful fall weekend
in conversation with friends and comrades in Vermont. But we believe
that the contemporary context makes it more important than ever to
foster a space in which to collectively and honestly appraise the
strengths as well as weaknesses of different anarchist practices,
platforms, convictions, dogmas, truisms, and theories in helping us
to understand and ultimately transform the layered systems of
domination and oppression that structure it. We also see RAT as a
place to discuss and share theoretical tools from beyond the
anarchist tradition(s) that can add to building more sustainable
social movements and practices, and eventually a world characterized
by freedom, justice, and dignity for all.

RAT aims to nurture and support a new generation of anti-
authoritarian public intellectuals from different backgrounds and
experiences. So when we describe it as "a scholarly conference," we
are referring to a quality of the presentations and discussions--not
to some professional identity of the participants. You do not have to
be an academic to attend or present at RAT. All you have to do is be
ready to actively participate in the conversations and debates, as
peers who are creating the conference space together. In the past,
RAT has served as a forum for organizers, scholars, writers, artists,
educators, publishers, and students from a range of anarchist and
libertarian left tendencies to come together to engage in challenging
yet respectful dialogue. Participants have observed that RAT offers a
distinctive social environment in which long-term conversations and
relationships between anti-authoritarians from various places and
political contexts can be built.

At previous conferences, presenters have proposed topics that ranged
from the character of social change to the ongoing relevance of
categories such as class, community, and labor; from the changing
shape of the state and capital to emergent forms of both domination
and resistance in a globalizing world; from the character of twenty-
first-century technology to the functions and potentials of anti-
authoritarian art and propaganda; and from anarchism's relation to
geopolitical concerns such as terrorism and war to its ability to
grapple with issues of identity such as race, gender, and sexuality.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
(Due by or before September 1, 2007)

http://anarchiststudies.org/node/146

We are once again accepting proposals for a limited number of
presentations. In addition, we will be curating a series of panels
that build on previous conversations and provoke even more dynamic
debate than at past conferences.

If you are interested in presenting, please take a look at the RAT
archive (currently at http://www.homemadejam.org/renew) to get a
sense of the topics that have been explored in the past. If you feel
alienated when you look at this list, or think that important issues
that should be considered through an anarchist lens have been left
out, do not panic or decide not to attend. Please send us a proposal.
We particularly encourage non-academics, working people, women,
indigenous people, people of color, queer and trans people, and
others frequently marginalized in scholarly life to submit proposals.

Each proposal should include: a succinct presentation title; a
maximum 150-word description of your presentation and the question or
topic you wish to address; a maximum 50-word description of yourself;
and your full name and e-mail.

You can submit multiple proposals, and proposals for panels are also
welcome. Please note, however, that we will be choosing from the
proposals by September 15, and not every proposal will be selected.

If your proposal is accepted, you are automatically registered. All
presenters must pay the registration fee, since RAT has no funding
other than all of us contributing to make this space possible.

Send your proposal(s), by or before September 1, to:
rat-presentations@anarchiststudies.org.

REGISTRATION
(Starting on September 15, 2007)

RAT registration, limited to 150 people, will open on September 15.
All presenters are automatically registered, but like everyone else,
they must pay the registration fees in full by or before October 15.
RAT has no outside or independent funding, so everyone who attends
contributes financially to making this conference possible. Those who
register for RAT can also book a table(s) for bookstores, infoshops,
magazines, and other projects.

Once registration opens, we will offer a sliding-scale registration
for the following three options:

1. Registration and five meals (for locals and
others not requiring housing): $45 to $65
2. Registration, five meals, and 2 nights in
shared dorm room: $105 to $125
3. Registration, five meals, and 2 nights in
single dorm room: $155 to $180

Also, a limited number of partial scholarships will be
available to subsidize RAT conference fees for those
with financial need. These scholarships, as in the
past, will be made possible because of the generosity
of other RAT participants who can afford to pay the
higher end (or more!) of our sliding scale.

SCHEDULE

RAT will open this year with a single panel on the evening of Friday,
November 2, followed by a full day of presentations, panels, and a
party on Saturday, November 3, and will wrap up with more
presentations and panels until about 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 4.
All presenters and participants should plan on attending the full
conference, since RAT is meant as an extended conversation.

We are renting space at a small college in Montpelier, Vermont, for
meeting rooms, tabling, five meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner on
Saturday; breakfast and lunch on Sunday), and dorm rooms. On Saturday
night, we'll be using the Langdon Street Cafe for a performance
(rants! confessions! diatribes! music!) and socializing space.

--
Stevphen Shukaitis
Autonomedia Editorial Collective
http://www.autonomedia.org
http://slash.interactivist.net

"Autonomy is not a fixed, essential state. Like gender, autonomy is
created through its performance, by doing/becoming; it is a political
practice. To become autonomous is to refuse authoritarian and
compulsory cultures of separation and hierarchy through embodied
practices of welcoming difference... Becoming autonomous is a
political position for it thwarts the exclusions of proprietary
knowledge and jealous hoarding of resources, and replaces the social
and economic hierarchies on which these depend with a politics of
skill exchange, welcome, and collaboration. Freely sharing these with
others creates a common wealth of knowledge and power that subverts
the domination and hegemony of the master's rule." - subRosa Collective

Organized by the Institute of Network Cultures

http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex/

---

More on the Event: http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex/
List info:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/videovortex_listcultures.org

In response to the increasing potential for video to become a
significant form of personal media on the Internet, this conference
examines the key issues that are emerging around the independent
production and distribution of online video content. What are artists
and activists responses to the popularity of ‘user-generated content’
websites? Is corporate backlash eminent?

After years of talk about digital conversions and crossmedia platforms
we are now witnessing the merger of the Internet and television at a
pace that no one predicted. For the baby boom generation, that
currently forms the film and television establishment, the media
organisations and conglomerates, this unfolds as a complete nightmare.
Not only because of copyright issues but increasingly due to the shift
of audience to vlogging and video-sharing websites as part of the
development of a broader participatory culture.

The opening night will feature live acts, performances and lectures
under the banner of video slamming. We will trace the history from
short film to one-minute videos to the first experiments with streaming
media and online video, along with exploring the way VJs and media
artists are accessing and using online archives.

The Video Vortex conference aims to contextualize these latest
developments through presenting continuities and discontinuities in the
artistic, activist and mainstream perspective of the last few decades.
Unlike the way online video presents itself as the latest and greatest,
there are long threads to be woven into the history of visual art,
cinema and documentary production. The rise of the database as the
dominant form of storing and accessing cultural artifacts has a rich
tradition that still needs to be explored. The conference aims to raise
the following questions:

- How are people utilising the potential to independently produce and
distribute independent video content on the Internet?
- What are the alternatives to the proprietary standards currently
being developed?
- What are the commercial objectives that mass media is imposing on
user-generated content and video-sharing databases?
- What is the underlying economics of online video in the age of
unlimited uploads?
- How autonomous are vloggers within the broader domain of mass media?
- How are cinema, television and video art being affected by the
development of a ubiquitous online video practice?
- What type of aesthetic and narrative issues does the database pose
for online video practice?

Conference themes:

Viral Video critique
Vlogging Critique
Participatory Culture, Participatory Video
Real World Tools and Technologies
Theory & History of the Database
Narrative and the Cinematic
Database Taxonomy and Navigation
Internet Video: Art, Activism, and Public Media
Evening Programme / Exhibition

(see website for details)

Video Vortex Discussion List:

With this discussion list we like to gather responses to the rise of
YouTube and similar online video databases. What does YouTube tell us
about the state of art in visual culture? Is YouTube the corporate
media structure of the 21st century? What are the artist responses to
YouTube aesthetics?

General information about the mailing list is at:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/videovortex_listcultures.org

To post to this list, send your email to:
videovortex(at)listcultures.org

This list is meant for all those interested in the topic, and will
possibly continue after the event in late 2007.

Practical info:

Date
November 30 and December 1, 2007.

Venue
PostCS 11, PostCS building
Oosterdokskade 3-5
1011 AD Amsterdam
T: 020 - 62 55 999
www.ilove11.nl

Organized by
Institute of Network Cultures, HvA Interactive Media, Amsterdam

Editorial team
Geert Lovink, Sabine Niederer, Shirley Niemans

Affiliated researchers
Seth Keen, Vera Tollmann

Production
Shirley Niemans

For further information, please contact
Shirley Niemans, shirley(at)networkcultures.org
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The Biennale of Sydney is held in Sydney's leading museums and galleries and is renowned for showcasing the freshest and most innovative contemporary art from Australia and around the world.

Since 1973 the Biennale of Sydney exhibitions have presented the work of more than 1200 artists from over sixty countries. Most of these artists were also brought to Sydney by the Biennale, which often facilitated their travel and co-ordinated their professional engagements in a national outreach program to art schools and universities across Australia.

Please visit the Biennale of Sydney website for more information on the Biennale's mission, history and past exhibitions.

The concept 'Zones of Contact' forms the framework and organising principle of the 2006 Biennale of Sydney, which will include a range of artists from around the world practising in all forms of the visual arts. 'Zones of Contact' is about the spaces in which people live in and move between, the spatial dimensions of cities, settlements, territories, the land and home. The work refers to the temporal dimensions of those spaces, the body, everyday life, places in which people encounter one another and other cultures and sense of self and their histories.

http://www.bos2006.com/