Re:live - Third International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology :: November 26-29, 2009 :: Melbourne, Australia :: Call For Papers – Deadline: December 19, 2008.

The next iteration of the Media Art History conference is Re:live which is to be held in Melbourne, Victoria in 2009. The event follows the success of the two previous Media Art History conferences, re:fresh (Banff 2005) and re:place (Berlin 2007). The conference series is an initiative of Leonardo / ISAST (International Society for Art, Science and Technology) whose International Advisory Committee will publicise the event and referee papers.

Re:live is calling for papers, panels and posters on the histories of digital, electronic and technological media arts. With the theme of Re:live we are especially interested in expanding the range of topics to include sustainability, live arts and the technological arts of life, both organic and non-organic.

How do the media arts change? Through innovation, accident, discovery, mutation or crisis? How did contemporary media arts come to look and sound like they do? What options and potentialities and eccentricities in the history of media have been lost or overlooked or suppressed? What hopes have been realized and which dashed? What is the history of speculation on alternate histories, and how have they altered the course of media art history?

Participants are asked to address at least one the following areas in their abstract:

- histories of the art-science-technology connection in particular works, careers, exhibitions and institutions, especially in national and regional perspective
- histories of biology, the life sciences and bioart in relation to media arts
- histories of the environment, environmental sciences, ideas of sustainability and ecology in the discourses and practices of media arts
- histories of liveness and performance in relation to media arts theory and practice, including network performance, multimedia performance and the relation of media to the histories of theater
- histories of the life of machines, cyborgs, virtual communities and the arts of transmission
- histories of the liveness of real-time arts and art-science-technology collaborations in such areas as earth sciences, meteorology and astronomy
- histories of innovation, accident, discovery, and speculation on alternative futures in media arts

We particularly wish to encourage presentations from and about these histories in the Asia-Pacific region. Proposals are welcomed from artists, curators, arts organizers and researchers in media, art history, performance studies, literature, film, and science and technology studies.

Selected papers from the conference will be published in Leonardo (MIT Press). We are negotiating with academic presses for one or two anthologies from the conference.

Submissions: A dedicated website with updates and online paper submission system is available here. Abstracts of proposals, panel presentations and posters should be submitted in either text, RTF, PDF or Word formats.

Deadline for 200 word abstracts: 19th December 2008. Please submit proposals here.

In developing the Re:live conference, we have established a national committee, to promote awareness and interest in the event across Australia. This committee is comprised of individuals who can drive forward these newer connections and reconnect with the ongoing themes established by the ‘re’ conferences. Australia provides an excellent geographic, geopolitical and geocultural space for hosting this conference. It connects regionally with both Asian and Pacific cultures and the ongoing exchange of media arts between, northern and southern hemispheres.

Conference chairs: Dr Paul Thomas, Professor Sean Cubitt