General Subjects
The conference is subdivided into four distinct but closely related
subjects.
Tactical Research
The means and ends of tactical research are the theme of a series of
presentations from television, radio, phone and computer networks, which
question the information monopoly as practised by main stream broadcasting
organisations and individual or corporate experts.
Public Domain and access
As 'democratisation' is one of the central claims associated with the
tactical media, we will have to assess critically to what extent it can
actually
be achieved. In this context we also want to discuss the effects that
tactical
media have on the reconfiguration and revitalisation of our notions of
community, as well as the technical, political and ethical aspects of public
access and large-scale local connectivity. In addition we propose to use the
conference to scrutinise several legal, political, economic and ethical
issues
about the state policy concerning public and
commercial broadcasting.
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Metaphorical Languages
For us the question of metaphor is not abstract. It includes and goes
beyond
issues of representation and asks the strategic question, what language
shall we
use. We have therefore made the third theme of the conference the use of
metaphorical languages. Current metaphors, like the socio-spatial
metaphors of
digital cities and electronic superhighways, or the biological metaphors
of the
media ecology of cyborgs and memes, will be
evaluated.
Net criticism
Finally the conference will strive to introduce the concept of Net
criticism.
We imagine this as a form of reflexive critical consciousness about the
contents
and practice of the communications culture as it has been affected by the
emergence of the Net. It will be an investigation of language and
metaphor in
the electronic age, and it should strive to formulate aesthetic and ethical
categories for net and media discourse. The continuous involvement of visual
artists with the interrogation of metaphors places their work at the
heart of
the development of a political poetics for the media age.
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