25 Apr 2018

Call for OF2018: GLOBAL CONTROL Conference Proposals, RIXC Festival, Riga

GLOBAL CONTROL
RIXC Art Science Festival 2018
September 13–15, 2018, Riga

'Knowledge is a power. And power is possessed especially by whoever controls the flow of information.' (Global Control and Censorship* exhibition concept).

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Apply Now! Call for Conference Abstracts is Open
DEADLINE (extended): May 10, 2018
openfields2018.rixc.lv

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Marking the centennial anniversary of independent Latvia and Baltic countries, this year's festival takes a challenge to become a space for artistic interventions and hot-topic conversations about the complexity and the future of digital society, with regards to ubiquitous surveillance and our data safety.

The anniversary festival conference with the title GLOBAL CONTROL, will discuss these issues from three main perspectives. The first, 'hybrid war', is particularly relevant in the context of the Baltic states independence celebration year, when continuous 'post-truth' propaganda in our media and tensions around military trainings in this region are increasing. From 'hybrid war' perspective, we would like to discuss the issues of 'fake news' and its consequences on global politics, and impacts on to each individual country.

The second perspective refers to 'surveillance and immersion' discussion; as today we all are under surveillance, we would like to become aware of both – the enormous scale of 'watching', as well as the potential 'depth' of it due to the developing immersive technologies. And the third, is 'the next big privacy' issue, which will be discussed from 'data politics' perspective – what is the future of our social media? how can we feel safe about our data we publish on the internet today? and how to maintain the fragile line of trust also for the next generations to come?

These are just a few of hot-topics that will be critically discussed and explored in Global Control festival through public keynotes, artistic interventions, thematic panel presentations, open public discussions, performances and participatory workshops for younger audiences.
The festival's special event is the Global Control and Censorship* exhibition, which particularly aims to expand the public debate about the ever-present surveillance and censorship methods.

At the closing day of the festival, participants will be invited to join the bus tour to legendary Irbene Radiotelescope, a former top-secret Soviet military antenna, that has been used on spying, and now turned into a scientific device used by Latvian and international radio astronomers communities.

Overall, this year, we expect more than 100 participants, from 60 universities and cultural institutions, as well as numerous independent artists and researchers from more than 30 countries.

CONFERENCE
Open Fields 2018: Global Control
September 13 – 15, 2018, The National Library of Latvia, Conference Center

Call for Conference Abstracts
We welcome artists, scientists, theorists, designers, critical engineers, makers as as well as doctoral students and researchers from different fields to submit proposals for the conference.

Themes:

* hybrid war, fake news and post-truth
* the next big privacy, data politics and social visibility
* surveillance, immersion and VR/AR environments
* brainwaves science and neural networks
* AI, network visualisation and data tracing
* virtual and natural, global data and local ecosystems
* acoustics and espionage, from radio to social media

DEADLINE (extended) – May 10, 2018

APPLY NOW: openfields2018.rixc.lv/
Proposal should consist of title, 5-6 keywords, abstract (200 words), and short biography (120 words)

The Open Fields conference is the annual gathering in Riga, Latvia, for international scholars and artists working at the intersection of arts, humanities and science. The Open Fields conference was launched in 2016 by Renewable Futures network. Every year the Open Fields conference gathers together more than 100 participants, representing 60 universities and institutions, as well as independent artists and researchers from more then 30 countries world-wide.

The Open Fields Conference is organized by RIXC in collaboration with Liepaja University's Art Research Lab and Renewable Futures network. This year, the OF conference is taking place in the framework of the Centenary of the Republic of Latvia Celebration Programme.
This year's conference with the title Global Control will take place in the Conference Hall of the National Library of Latvia.

Proceedings
The selected papers will be published in the next volume of the Acoustic Space, double blind peer-reviewed journal & book series. The call for papers will be announced shortly after the conference.
acousticspacejournal.com

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EXHIBITION
*Global Control and Censorship
September 14 – October 21, 2018, The National Library of Latvia, Exhibition Hall

The exhibition is based on the collaboration with a network of scientists, journalists, activists, and artists in some twenty countries around the world, and in cooperation with expert organizations such as the German PEN Center, the Chaos Computer Club, Reporters Without Borders, and such platforms as netzpolitik.org, digitalcourage.de, WikiLeaks, and others. The exhibition's aim is to expand public debate about the ever-present surveillance and censorship methods, which is an urgent priority not only due to constant new reports in the media, but especially because of the extensive obstruction of the investigation of these practices.

Exhibition Curators: Bernhard Serexhe and Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás
Produced by Goethe-Institut Riga and RIXC, in cooperation with the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

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OF2018: GLOBAL CONTROL Conference Steering Committee ad Co-Chairs:
Prof. Rasa SMITE / RIXC / MIT ACT, USA / FHNW, Switzerland / Liepaja University, Latvia
Prof. Kristin BERGAUST / OsloMet-Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Dr. Ellen PEARLMAN / Parsons / New School / Art-A-Hack / ThoughtWorks / New York, USA
Prof. Felix STALDER / Zurich University of Arts, Switzerland - tbc.

OPEN FIELDS Conference International Scientific Board:
Prof. Lev MANOVICH / Cultural Analytics Lab / The Graduate Center, City University of New York, US
Ph.D. Jussi PARIKKA / Winchester School of Art / University of Southampton / UK
Ph.D. Geoff COX / Plymouth University, UK
Prof. Kristin BERGAUST / Oslo and Akershus University, Norway
Assoc. Prof. Laura BELOFF / IT University, Copenhagen / Finnish Bioart Society, Helsinki, Finland
Prof. Lily DIAZ-KOMMONEN / Head of Research Department of Media, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki, Finland
Assoc. Prof. Yvonne Volkart, FHNW, Switzerland
Prof. Ursula DAMM / Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany
Dr. Vytautas MICHELKEVICIUS / Nida Art Colony, Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania
Ph.D. Margrét Elísabet ÓLAFSDÓTTIR / Art Education at the University of Akureyri, Iceland
Dr. Ilva SKULTE / Riga Stradins University, Latvia
Dr. Piibe PIIRMA / Tallinn University / Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia
Ph D. Raivo KELOMEES / Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia
Regine DEBATTY / we-make-money-not-art.com / UK/BE
Aleksandra KOSTIC / Kibla / Risk Change project / Maribor, Slovenia
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RIXC Festival curators: Rasa Smite and Raits Smits

The festival is organized by RIXC Center for New Media Culture.
RIXC Festival producers and contacts – Agnese Baranova (exhibition, agnese@rixc.org) and Daina Silina (conference, daina@rixc.org), PR and information – Anna Babre (anna.babre@rixc.org).

Contact: rixc@rixc.org, +371 67228478 (RIXC office), +371 26546776 (Rasa Smite)

Support: The State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, LV100, EU Programme Creative Europe's Risk Change project, Goethe-Institut, ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, National Library of Latvia, Art Research Lab (MPLab) of Liepajas University, RISEBA University.

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rixc.org/en/festival
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