Description
For the latest edition of the winter school we invite researchers to explore, analyse, and (above all) celebrate the frayed edges of digital media culture – glitches, blurred boundaries, major or minor transgressions – and the creative potential of these ostensibly neglected or problematic areas that lie outside the mainstream. How can these “trouble spots” be useful in conceptual, theoretical, or methodological terms? How do they reveal fundamental contradictions about our digital culture? How do they queer our virtual lives? Can we build something from their malfunction?The glitch is an interruption of our daily digital lives. When a part of the technology breaks down and manifests as a glitch, it changes the way we read, interpret, and interact online. Glitches are an aesthetic of failure. When we are interpellated by failure, as Michael Betancourt points out, the “aura of the digital” is dispelled. What should be a prescribed course of action is stopped, and we are faced with a blank screen (buffering anxiety). Glitches blur our idealised encounters with the digital. They therefore question what we expect from the digital, and how what is supposedly immaterial can reveal its material basis.
Artists, activists, and scholars have long embraced the revolutionary and critical potential of the “glitch” (Menkman), the “poor image” (Steyerl), the “accident” (Virilio), the “non-place” (Augé), the “punctum” (Barthes), the “hauntological” (Fisher), the “trouble” (Haraway), contagion, decoherence, dissonance, negation, and so on. How can we push this even further, to open the cracks that exist in everything (because “that’s where the light gets in”)? Can we intrepret the glitch as a call to arms Legacy Russell in Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto?
Inspired by these glitches, blurrings, and transgressions, we look forward to two days of groundbreaking discussion on themes related to digital culture, including (but not limited to):
Porous boundaries
Fluid identities
Failure
Anxiety
Glitching algorithms/machines
Technological disobedience
Remixing from within
As form of (in)visibility
As political strategy
Encounters between the material and immaterial
The programme will feature keynote lectures by Rosa Menkman and Cécile Malaspina and a workshop on research valorisation and fundraising schemes by THRIVE Institute. While we hope that participants will find connections and engage in discussions related to glitching, blurring, and transgression, presentations do not need to speak directly (or even indirectly) to the theme of the winter school – all are welcome.
| Period | 26 Jan 2023 → 27 Jan 2023 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Tilburg, NetherlandsShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- Media Studies
- Culture Studies
- Winter School
- Glitch