READ_ME 2004
                   software art festival
                          /        \
                         /          \
    Software Art and Cultures      Runme-Dorkbot
           conference               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 <[log in to unmask]> and Soeren
Pold <[log in to unmask]>

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

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


_______________________________________________