CALL FOR PAPERS: Kismet, my love Perforations 26 Guest editor Charles Kriel <journal@kriel.tv> Senior editor Robert Cheatham <zeug@pd.org> http://www.perforate.org/ Theme: Kismet, my love is concerned with the growing phenomena of the mediation of personality and the marketing of the self via new tools for communication: text and multimedia messaging; 3G video phones; mobile and stationary email; web pages; web logs; networked software agents and others. It is concerned with both the technical workings of any new innovations with potential use in this context, as well as the social implications and the theoretical issues surrounding them. As Perforations is an e-journal with impact beyond the theoretical, we are interested in works that express their ideas through a variety of media, including sound, video, visual art, performance, etc., as well as the written paper. George Myerson¹s Heidegger, Habermas and the Mobile Phone, is one possible starting point in this exploration. To quote John Bird on Myerson: [M]obile phone communication is, essentially, the provision of information through a technology which does not really require a person on the other end of the handset. The MIT AI Lab robot, Kismet, built by Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, is another source. Although Kismet speaks nonsense, it will engage you in conversation. Through gesture and vocal inflection, it will make clear that it understands that you have said something to it, it will speak non-demanding nonsense back to you, and then indicate that it is your turn to speak again. It insists only that you keep it at the right level of stimulation, and that you keep a reasonable distance. Finally, blogs play a role in this work. Frankfurt School theorists critiqued the wearing of one¹s personality externally and materially, whether through fashion or some other inscription into the corps of collective expression; the more democratic the language of expression, the more banal. Blogs, which typically express individual personality via a collection of links and a display of friendships (I am what I reference), are ripe for evaluation within this framework, whether pro-Adorno, anti-, or viewed within more contemporary theoretical parameters. This particular trend of expression of the individual via selection from the collective belies a drift in culture in general: the arrogation of the curator over the artist, the DJ over the musician, the blogger over the journalist. Kismet, my love privileges neither voice, but seeks, as well, to evaluate this shift in culture. Papers & Works: Perforations 26 will feature works and/or papers from: Dr. Richard Barbrook - University of Westminster Hypermedia Studies Siobhan Davies, CBE - Siobhan Davies Dance Company Gary Carter - former Executive Director of Programme Affairs, Endemol International Format: There are no limits to media formats, other than that which can (reasonably) be placed on the web. There are preferences, however: PDF & Word files will be converted into HTML and be made available for download in either format. Papers and artworks are equally encouraged. This will be an ISBN registered, peer-reviewed issue of Perforations. Submissions: Submissions should be sent to Charles Kriel, at journal@kriel.tv Abstract Deadline: 31 May 2003 Deadline: 31 August 2003 Perforations is an affiliate of Public Domain, Inc, a 501-c-3 organization unaffiliated with any other organization. Charles Kriel Guest editor Charles has been creating film/video and media works since relocating from Atlanta ten years ago; first to Prague, then Venice and London. Born a third-generation circus performer, Charles is PhD in media art from Central Saint Martins, and has received awards/grants/commissions from Prix Ars Electronica, ICA, MOMA-Oxford, London Institute, Royal Festival Hall, British Council, Dance on Screen, and London Arts. As a media artist, he has exhibited in the gallery of Tomato Design, at the 1999 Venice Biennale, and throughout the Middle East, Europe, Russia, the US and Australasia. As a composer, he has composed by commission an opera and several song cycles, and his work is released by ÖRF (Austria) and Electroshock (Moscow). As a filmmaker, writer and photographer, he is regularly commissioned by BBC Radio 1 and BBC 1Xtra and has also been commissioned by MTV, ITV and Channel 4. Also a media theorist synthesising the works of McLuhan, Lacan and Freud as they apply to digital media in his recent work Noise and the Uncanny, he has delivered papers and talks at University of Westminster, Institute of Education, London Institute, Oxford Brookes, and a number of conferences.