Politics of the Machines: Art / Conflict
POM Beirut 2019 (The 2nd POM Conference)
The International University of Beirut
June 11-14, 2019
Visit POM Beirut 2019 website
for full conference details.
Call for Participation
The call for participation falls in two steps:
deadline 30 November 2018
Call for topics, subthemes, and tracks of the conference from persons (individuals, institutions or teams). Call for expressions of interest in participation; chairing sessions, reviewing submissions, curating or volunteering their time to other conference work.
We are particularly interested in topics and expressions of interest that address research and ideas that are based on deep
Please note that we regard all proposals to be expressions of interest to act as reviewers in the second call review
deadline 28 February 2019
The 2nd edition of the POM Conference on Art/Conflict, POM Beirut 2019 will be hosted by the Institute of Visual Communication (IVC) under the Fine Arts & Design Department in collaboration with the Communication Arts and the Computer Science departments at the International University (IU) – Beirut campus, Lebanon, June 11-14, 2019.
POM Beirut will comprise four days of conferences with 10 tracks (listed below) of paper sessions, panels, workshops, exhibitions, and keynote speakers.
The tracks were generated based on the first call for topics contextualized under wide analysis/reflections/perspectives concerning a wide range of art/conflict issues that took into consideration the general conference description and profile.
POM Beirut 2019 – Tracks
01.Track: Arab revolutions: Refugees, Communication technology, Mobile connectivity.
02.Track: Terrorism machines: Art production, Sociopolitical implications.
03.Track: Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0): Art, Cyberphysics, Automated creativity.
04.Track: The Battlefield of Vision: Perceptions of War and Wars on Perception.
05.Track: Internet of things: Dystopian Artificial Intelligence, Black Boxes.
06.Track: Living machines: Wars within living organisms.
07.Track: Artificial intelligence for art AIA: Computational creativity, Neural networks, Simulating human activity.
08.Track: Permanent Telesurveillance: Privacy, data protection, panopticon.
09.Track: The Politics of Evidence: Refugees, Frictions, Sound-representation.
10.Track: Body-politics of the machines: Troubles WITH/IN/OUT art, body, perception, politics, and technology.
11.Track: The Ecosystem Analogy: Machinery of Nature, Borrowed landscapes, Anthropology of the near.
Politics of the Machines: Art / Conflict
POM Beirut 2019
In an area afflicted with multifaceted conflicts, art can become an agent for dialogue, an agent for resolution, or it can get itself involved in the clash.
The 2nd edition of the POM Conference on Art/Conflict, POM Beirut 2019 will be hosted by the Institute of Visual Communication (IVC) at the International University (IU) – Beirut campus, Lebanon, June 11-14, 2019.
The POM – Politics of The Machines is a conference series founded by Laura Beloff, ITU Copenhagen, and Morten Søndergaard, AAU Aalborg, Denmark. POM Beirut 2019 is organized by the IVC under the Fine Arts & Design Department in collaboration with the Communication Arts and the Computer Science departments.
POM Beirut will comprise four days of conferences with multiple tracks of paper sessions, panels, workshops, exhibitions, and keynote speakers. The tracks will be generated based on a call for topics contextualized under the wide frame of Politics of the Machines, art/conflict. Each track will have several smaller thematic sessions for submission, each chaired by participants selected from the call for topics phase.
Through its suggested tracks, POM Beirut will be addressing subjects related to art practices in relation to conflicts and will be questioning several topics on the politics of the machines, and art production in the context of conflicts.
The goal of this edition of POM will be to tackle art practices and the relation of art to the machine. In parallel, it will also focus on understanding the influence and relation between art and conflict. POM will tend to explore the connection between the violence of conflict and violence as a process in art production; the role of conflict in the sociopolitical environment and how it relates to the field of art, science, and technology.
POM Beirut will also try for a better understanding of the engagement and responsiveness of people and organizations to conflict, exploring how art may serve as a tool for resolution and for social inclusion; or as a counter-argument, a tool for conflict and/or violence. Conflict can also be understood as a contradicting force within an artwork, artistic methods or in a subject matter, it may also push for ethical questions or reveal conflict of interests.
The conference will also encompass few more technical approaches: some tracks may focus on technology employment and conflict, be it armed conflict or conflict provoked by art, the effects of the constant monitoring, surveillance and how we dwell in the panopticon. How today’s simulations reflect what is actual and how technology, at this level creates or allows for error, failure and risk. POM will also cover the need to problematize certain aspects of teleworking, telemarketing and tele-surveillance and seek to understand the affinity of technology, violence and power relations.
POM / Politics of The Machines – Conference series
politicsofthemachines.org
The POM-conference addresses the politics of the machines and the inescapable technological structures, as well as infrastructures of artistic production in-between human and non-human agency with critical and constructive perspectives. Where and when do experimental and artistic practices work beyond the human: machine and human: non-human dualisms towards biological, hybrid, cybernetic, vibrant, uncanny, overly material, darkly ecological and critical machines? How are we to analyze and contextualize alternative and experimental ontologies and epistemologies of artistic practices beyond transparent dualisms and objectification? How are the relationality and operationality of machines being negotiated into cultural and social ontologies? What are the politics – past, current, future – of these negotiations?
The POM – Politics of The Machines is a conference series founded by Laura Beloff and Morten Søndergaard.
