In October 2014, King’s College London’s Underground Arts & Humanities Festival hosts the the conference for Computers and the History of Art (CHArt).
CHArt invites theoretical papers and demonstrations of academic and artistic work addressing – metaphorically or literally – questions of subversive content, design and communication, including:
- Subversive engagement with digital arts and culture
- Originality and experimentation v. standards, trends and hypes
- Disruptions of the commonplace or the mainstream
- Visual digital subcultures
- Submerged identities
- Visualising the underground
- Elite audiences v. multi-peer connectivity
- Working in partnership with or against diverse organisations
- Cross-disciplinary subversive interventions (art/science; big data/visualisation; design/interaction).
Contributions are welcome from all sections of the CHArt community: art historians, artists, archaeologists, architects and architectural theorists and historians, philosophers, archivists, curators, conservators, educators, scientists, cultural and media theorists, content providers, technical developers, users and critics.
Digital engagement with art is thriving. Much of it is actively subversive of the traditional frameworks that enable art to be created and responded to – whether casually or professionally. This subversion takes various forms, including notions of value, uniqueness, fixity and location. The CHArt 2014 Conference wishes to explore the role of digital technologies in the underground creation, display, consumption and study of art.
The online ‘urban dictionary’ defines underground as follows: “A genre in music and other forms of media intended for an elite audience, that is often characterized by its high levels of originality and experimentation, and does not conform to typical standards, trends, or hypes as set by the popular mainstream media.” If emerging conformity and new processes must be disrupted; then what is mainstream; and what is not? – and who can tell?
Deadline: Wednesday 30 May 2014
Submissions should be in the form of a 300-400 word synopsis of the proposed paper or demonstration, with brief biographical information (no more than 200 words) of presenter/s, and should be emailed to chart@kcl.ac.uk by Wednesday 21 May 2014. Please note that submissions exceeding the stated word count will not be considered.
Postgraduate students are encouraged to submit a proposal. CHArt can offer assistance with the conference fees for up to three student delegates. Priority will be given to postgraduate students whose proposals are accepted for presentation. An application form and proof of university enrolment will be required. For further details about the Helene Roberts Bursary please email anna.bentkowska@kcl.ac.uk.
Deadlines
- 21 May 2014 – Submission of proposals
- 16 June 2014 – Acceptance notification
- 27 June 2014 – Speakers to confirm attendance, strictly with payment. All successful proposers will be eligible for the reduced registration fee of £100 (£50 for postgraduate student speakers).
- 18 August 2014 – Paper submission. Papers submitted by this date will be considered for publication.
