2017 - The International Conference on Futures of Media

? What is the relationship between art and science, and especially media theory? What are their possible areas of con-/divergence in the digital world?
? Is the so-called “third culture” ? the fusion of art and science ? an ideal or reality? How poetic is science today ? which kinds of work does it produce and in what waydo artists reflect their own production processes? How scientific is art today?
? How does contemporary art reveal re-conceptualizations of the self and the world that break with traditional media perspectives? Which contemporary forms of self-expression has art generated, and how are these mirrored in self art (as for instance in ‘selfies’)?
? How do the present digital conditions affect the work of art, and how are our modes of perception affected? Can ? as Walter Benjamin once hoped ? our media research on how art envisions and embodies the future today contribute to politics and activism?
? How do contemporary artists shape the relationship between reality and virtuality, fact and fiction? Which blurred boundaries and new trends can be observed? Can hacking be observed as art? Which new genres or programs can be identified?
? How do digital media affect art, and how does new media art affect the formats in which cultures and people create notions of identity?
? What lessons can be drawn from “futures past” (Koselleck) ? as proposed by both science and art, from now-faded visions of a formerly new time that has now become old?
? How does the digital replace the analogue and to what end? Does this move in itself change society, or is there a continuation of sorts at work?
? How does globalization effect digital artistic production? Does it include or preclude post-colonial views? How so?
? Are we really facing a global digital revolution? Or is the ‘global village’ nothing but wishful thinking, ignoring the digital divide between industrialized nations and the so-called third world? What about the “techno-illiterate artists” Guillermo Gómez-Pena speaks about, living south of the digital border? Are the debates around art and digital technology permeated by a “quiet ethnocentrism”?
? How does the minimal level of government support for the arts in countries like the United States, and vice versa the support of major publicly-funded institutions in Europe affect the development of media arts?