[syndicate] ACCELERATED LIVING conference // 15 October 2009 // Utrecht, NL

[stoffel.debuysere at gmail.com]

ACCELERATED LIVING
CONFERENCE

In the context of the programme “Accelerated Living”, part of IMPAKT FESTIVAL
2009, 14-18 October 2009, Utrecht, NL. Full Program (including exhibition,
screenings, performances, lectures): www.impakt.nl. Preview:
www.diagonalthoughts.com

Thursday 15 October 2009 / Filmtheater ‘t Hoogt / 10:00 – 18:30. 

Free entrance. Prior registration recommended via rsvp at impakt.nl (please
indicate your full name and contact details). 

The Italian media philosopher Franco Berardi aka Bifo recently wrote in his
'Post-Futurist Manifest' (2009) that «the omnipresent and eternal speed is
already behind us, in the Internet, so we can forget its syncopated rhymes and
find our own singular rhythm». During the past decade the spread of neo liberal
globalisation and the revolution of information and communication technologies
have led to a new temporal dynamics, both in terms of our personal lives and
for society as a whole. The rise of communication networks, stretched accross
time and space, has brought us to realize that clock time – the long-time
regulator of our social lives – is not an absolute backdrop against which to
communicate and synchronize time, but a human construction which has little to
do with our experience of and in time. Contemporary science and technology have
made possible a temporality which though still based upon clock time, has
exploded into countless different time fractions and speeds beyond human
comprehension. Today we seem to live in several time zones at the same time,
propelled by a variety of internal and external time mechanisms and innumerable
rhythms which continuously vibrate, resonate, connect, oscillate and
disconnect. How to grasp the temporal complexity that surrounds and occupies
us? What sort of ecologies of time and speed have we developed under the
influence of new technologies and what is their impact on our body and senses?
This conference brings together a number of international thinkers who offer
new perspectives on our contemporary experience of time and speed.

In collaboration with the MA New Media & Digital Culture, Department of Media
and Culture Studies, Utrecht University. Moderation: Klaas Kuitenbrouwer
(Virtueel Platform, Amsterdam) & Mirko Tobias Schaefer (Utrecht University).

Participants: Mike Crang, Dirk de Bruyn, Charlie Gere, Steve Goodman, Carmen
Leccardi, Glenn Kaino, Sybille Lammes, Stamatia Portanova, Jon Thomson & Alison
Craighead, John Tomlinson.

Mike Crang (UK) is Lecturer in cultural geography at Durham University. His
research is concerned with social identity and perception of space, as well as
the transformation of space and time caused by electronic technologies. For
years he co-edited the journal Time & Society and in 2005 he participated in
the project Multispeed Cities and the Logistics of Living in the Information
Age.

Dirk de Bruyn (NL/AUS) teaches animation and digital culture at Deakin
University in Melbourne, Victoria. The past decades he has produced a number of
films, videos and performances dealing with the feeling of trauma and
disorientation. His recent research focuses on the functioning of memory
systems and perception strategies in situations of sensorial excess.

Charlie Gere (UK) teaches New Media Research at the Institute for Cultural
Research, Lancaster University and is Chair of the group ‘Computers and the
History of Art’ (CHArt). He’s interested in the cultural effects and meanings
of technology and media, in relation to art and philosophy. His book Art, Time
and Technology (2006) explores artistic responses to the increasing speed of
technological development.

Steve Goodman (UK) teaches music culture at the School of Humanities & Social
Sciences, University of East London. He runs the master “Sonic Culture” and is
now working on Sonic Warfare, a theoretical research on the intersection
between war and sound culture. A member of Ccru (Cybernetic Culture Research
Unit), under the name of Kode9 he is a main figure in contemporary breakbeat
culture.

Carmen Leccardi (IT) is Professor of Cultural Sociology at the University of
Milan-Bicocca. She has researched extensively in the field of time, youth
cultures and gender. Recent publications include Il tempo nella società (Time
in Society) and A New Youth? Youth, Generations and Family Life (2006). She’s
the co-editor of the journal Time & Society since 1999.

Glenn Kaino (US) is not easy to pin down. A former creative director for
Napster, mastermind of ueber.com, co-founder of the Deep River Gallery in Los
Angeles, visual artist... Much like Andy Warhol, he effortlessly crosses the
borders between art and entertainment, using a variety of media and cultural
references. His installation series ‘Time Machines’ is the result of a
pronounced fascination with the complexity of time.

Sybille Lammes (NL) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Media and
Culture Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht University. She is interested
in SF film, games and digital cartography. In recent years, her research has
focused on the function of computer games as cultural spaces and the impact of
digital maps on the meanings of media and cartography.

Stamatia Portanova (IT) received her PhD in Digital Cultures from the East
London University, and is now a Honorary Fellow in English Language and
Literature at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. She is a member of The
Sense Lab (Concordia University, Montreal) and of the editorial board of
Inflexions, the online journal of the Sense Lab. She is working at the
preparation of a monograph on the relationship between choreography, science
and philosophy.

Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead (UK) have been working together since the
beginning of the 1990s on an idiosyncratic oeuvre, situated in the twilight
zone between visual art and online media. Most of their work deals with the
influence of new technologies on our experience of time and perception of the
world around us. Thomson teaches at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, and
Craighead lectures at the University of Westminster and Goldsmiths, University
of London.

John Tomlinson (UK) is Professor of Cultural Sociology and Director of the
Institute for Cultural Analysis, Nottingham (ICAn). He has published a number
of books on the themes of globalisation, cosmopolitanism and cultural
modernity, including Globalization and Culture (1999). His recent book The
Culture of Speed: The Coming of Immediacy (2007) explores the place of speed
within modern telemediated culture.