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From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: 16 March 2006 19:30
To: Interdisciplinary academic study of Cyber Society
Subject: VECTORS CALL FOR FELLOWS

Summer 2006 Fellowship Call for Proposals
Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular

The University of Southern California's Institute for Multimedia Literacy is
pleased to announce a third annual Fellowship program for summer 2006 to
foster innovative research for its digital publishing venture, Vectors:
Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular.

First launched in 2005, Vectors is an international electronic journal
dedicated to expanding the potentials of academic publication via emergent
and transitional media. Moving well beyond the text-with-pictures format of
much electronic scholarly publishing, Vectors brings together visionary
scholars with cutting-edge designers and technologists to propose a thorough
rethinking of the dynamic relationship of form to content in academic
research, focusing on the ways technology shapes, transforms and
reconfigures social and cultural relations.

Vectors adheres to the highest standards of quality in a strenuously
reviewed format. The journal is edited by Tara McPherson and Steve Anderson,
with Creative Directors Erik Loyer and Raegan Kelly and Lead Programmer
Craig Dietrich, and is guided by the collective knowledge of a prestigious
international board.

About the Fellowships
· Vectors Fellowships will be awarded to up to eight individuals or teams of
collaborators in the early to mid- stages of development of a scholarly
multimedia project related to the themes of Difference or Memory. Completed
projects will be included in Volume 3 of the journal in 2007. Vectors
features next-generation multimedia scholarship, publishing work that can
only be realized in an online format.

Volume Three, Issue One: Difference
 From Charles Babbage's 19th century "Difference Engine" to Derrida's 1980s
neographism "Différance," the notion of difference has served as a
provocative metaphor for thinking about language, culture, politics,
technology and identity. This issue of Vectors encourages diverse
examinations of the notion of difference as it plays out in a variety of
cultural spheres, discourses and practices. We are interested in a
broadly-conceived notion of difference, one that engages technology and
culture or that might be productively examined through the format of an
interactive multimedia journal. In particular, we seek proposals that
foreground the cultural or political manifestations of racial, gender,
national, religious, ethnic, geographic, technological or economic
differences.

Possible areas of investigation include but are not limited to:
-historical and future conceptions of difference -rethinking otherness,
multi-culturalism, convergence -technologies of difference -legacies +
limits of 1990s theories and manifestations of difference -sounding out
difference(s) -afro-futurism, speculative differences, future species
-sameness and/or difference, the logics of both/and -rethinking identity;
difference/multiplicity/fragmentation
-post-Katrina, post-9/11, post-racism
-post-feminist gender differences
-war and ethnic/religious differences
-economic disparity and cultural differences

Volume Three, Issue Two: Memory
Jean Luc Godard's dictum that "only the hand that erases can write" 
underscores the ironic and contradictory status of memory in postmodern
culture. In an age when both history and memory are routinely characterized
as being at an end, it is more important than ever to closely examine the
epistemological precepts and rhetorical strategies by which we engage,
remember and speak about the past. This issue of Vectors explores a range of
possible frameworks for thinking about memory as a phenomenon that is
fundamentally entangled with the discourses of competing disciplines,
political imperatives and cultural contexts. We are particularly interested
in proposals that engage the eccentric, disruptive and dynamic potentials of
memory as it relates to history, media, technology, and/or the sciences.

Possible areas of investigation include but are not limited to:
-the impact of proliferating technological and prosthetic forms of memory
-scientific and medical visualization -visual memory, media and popular
culture memories -memorialization, reminiscence, recall -the role of
nostalgia, desire, psychology and narrative -amnesia, displacement, erasure,
regeneration -the dynamic interplay of remembering and forgetting; "creative
forgetting," "active forgetting"
-memory as practice, process and ritual
-reconstruction, reenactment, rescripting and remixing of memories
-counter-memory, chaos and resistance -discontinuous, fragmentary or
disruptive visions of the past -individual vs. social, cultural and popular
memory

About the Awards
All fellowship recipients will participate in a one-week residency June
19-23, 2006 at USC's Institute for Multimedia Literacy, where they will have
access to state of the art production facilities. Fellows work in
collaboration with world-class designers and Vectors' technical support and
programming team throughout the project's development, typically during a
span of 3-5 months.

The residency will include colloquia and working sessions where participants
will have the chance to develop project foundations and collectively engage
relevant issues in scholarly multimedia. Applicants need not be proficient
with new media authoring, but must demonstrate familiarity with the
potentials of digital media forms. Evidence of the capacity for successful
collaboration and for scholarly innovation is required. Fellowship awards
will include an honorarium of $1500 for each participant or team of
collaborators, in addition to travel and accommodation expenses.

About the Proposals
We are seeking project proposals that creatively address issues related to
the themes of Difference and Memory. While the format of the journal is
meant to explore innovative modes of multimedia scholarship, we are not
necessarily looking for projects that are about new media. Rather, we are
interested in the various ways that 'old' and 'new' technologies suggest a
transformation of scholarship, art and communication practices and their
relevance to everyday life in an unevenly mediated world.

Applicants are encouraged to think beyond the computer screen to consider
possibilities created by the proliferation of wireless technology, handheld
devices, alternative exhibition venues, etc. 
Projects may translate existing scholarly work or be entirely conceived for
new media. We are particularly interested in projects that re-imagine the
role of the user and seek to reach broader publics. Work that creatively
explores innovations in interactivity, cross-disciplinary collaboration, or
scholarly applications for newly developing scientific or engineering
technologies are also encouraged.

Proposals should include the following
· Title of project and a one-sentence description

· A 3-5 page description of the project concept, goals and outcome. This
description should address questions of audience; innovative uses of
interactivity, address and form. Please also detail the project's argument
and its contribution to multimedia scholarship and, more generally, to
contemporary scholarship in your field.

· Brief biography of each applicant, including relevant qualifications and
experience for this fellowship

· Full CV for each applicant

· Anticipated required resources (design, technical, hardware, software,
exhibition, etc.)

· Projected timeline for project development

· Sample media if available (CD, DVD, VHS (any standard), or NTSC Mini-DV);
for electronic submissions, URLs are preferred but still images may be sent
as e-mail attachments if necessary)

Projects that articulate a clear understanding of the value of multimedia to
their execution will be the most successful. Take seriously the questions
"Why does this project need to be realized in multimedia? What is to be
gained by the use of a rich media format for the argument or experience I
aim to present?"

Electronic applications are preferred. Please submit to:
[log in to unmask]

Mailing address
Vectors Summer Fellowships
Annenberg Center for Communication
746 W. Adams Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90089-7727

Priority will be given to applications received by April 15, 2006. 
Fellowship recipients will be notified in May 2006.

Additional Information
For additional information about Vectors and the Vectors Summer Fellowship
Program, please visit http://www.vectorsjournal.org Questions may be
directed to Tara McPherson [log in to unmask] or Steve Anderson
[log in to unmask]


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