This call for participation might be of interest to people here because of
the emphasis on information.
Adam Lauder holds a chair in e-librarianship at York University in
Toronto, Canada, and is working on a catalogue raisonne of conceptual
artist Iain BAXTER&. (http://andraisonne.blogspot.com/ --- I know it's an
insanely ugly green. It's branding.) He's organizing this and he'd be
open to all manner of wild proposals.
If a "creative intervention" about "noisy information" sounds interesting,
read on.
Bill
--
William Denton
Toronto, Canada
http://www.miskatonic.org/
*Call for Participation*
interPLAY between creativity & information
A One-Day Symposium March 26, 2012
York University Libraries Toronto, Canada
Keynote speaker: Professor Richard A. Cavell, University of British Columbia
Our extended senses, tools, technologies, through the ages, have been
closed systems incapable of interplay or collective awareness. Now, in the
electric age, the very instantaneous nature of co-existence among our
technological instruments has created a crisis quite new in human history.
Our extended faculties now constitute a single field of experience which
demands that they become collectively conscious. Our technologies, like
our private senses, now demand an interplay and ratio that makes rational
co-existence possible. (McLuhan 2002 [1962]: 5)
Inspired by Marshall McLuhan?s transformation of information theory, from a
?matching? model of communication to one of active ?making,? in 1966 Canadian
conceptual artist IAIN BAXTER& began to explore the creative possibilities of
?information? as a medium (Cavell 1999: 349). A 45-year process of exploration
has led BAXTER& (a.k.a. Iain Baxter, a.k.a. N.E. Thing Co.) to engage with, and
creatively reinterpret, shifting definitions of information across a range of
disciplines, including business, computing, linguistics and theoretical
biology. Like McLuhan, BAXTER& challenges us to re-conceive binary code as the
stuff of dialogue and sensation. In the most recent work of BAXTER&, the
Boolean operator ?&? and DNA code are ciphers for what theoretical biologist
Stuart A. Kauffman (2008: xi) has termed the ?ceaseless creativity? of complex
systems.
The ongoing publication of the IB&raisonnE?an experimental online catalogue
raisonn? being developed at York University Libraries, that seeks to expand and
transform traditional reference formats through exploratory methods of social
production?provides the ideal occasion for responding to the visionary
information art of IAIN BAXTER& with fresh approaches to information,
information technology, and library and information science.
Notwithstanding the critical and creative models of information proposed by
BAXTER&, McLuhan and others, Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver?s influential
?transmission? model of communication (1962) continues to dominate approaches
to, and uses of, information across the disciplinary spectrum. A relative
absence of critical and creative approaches to information is particularly
notable in the field of library and information science, even as libraries face
radical transformations in the information behaviours of users and to the
overall information milieu. Setting out to challenge conceptualizations of
information as linear, quantitative, neutral and context-free, interPLAY will
probe the ?resonant interval? between creativity and information as a noisy
space for transdisciplinary and social experimentation, insight and
intervention through a program of participants drawn from the digital
humanities, information and library science, communication and cultural
studies, art history and studio art.
interPLAY invites submissions for short (10-minute) and long (20-minute)
presentations and creative interventions that respond to the themes below.
Student submissions are encouraged.
Themes
Noisy Information ? Information is as much about noise, entropy and complexity
as it is about pattern and precision: can the ?noisy? character of information
be harnessed as a creative and constructive force within the academic
environment? Can information be conceived as non-linear, situated, embodied,
physical or material, etc.?
The ?Information Landscape? ? How are information technologies transforming how
creators, researchers and students conceive and intervene within the social and
natural environment? What are the new information ecologies produced by the
social media?
Social Information ? How are information behaviours changing in response to
social media?
Interdisciplinary Information ? How are information and information technologies
reconfiguring disciplinary boundaries, methodological tools as well as
approaches to teaching and learning, both within the academy and beyond?
Submission Guidelines
*All proposals must include the following information*:
? Name, title and affiliation of each author (please indicate student authors)
? An extended abstract (500 words) describing the presentation, including
illustrations or diagrams for installation as needed
? Requirements for technical support (e.g., AV, space, electrical) required for
presentation or installation, if needed
? First author?s name and page numbers on all proposal pages Please send
proposals (as attachments to email) and other inquiries to:
[log in to unmask]
*Deadlines*
? Preliminary deadline for receipt of proposals: *November 19, 2011*
? December 5, 2011*
References
Cavell, Richard. 1999. McLuhan and Spatial Communication. Western Journal of
Communication 63(3): 348-63.
Kauffman, Stuart A. 2008. Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason,
and Religion. New York: Basic.
McLuhan, Marshall. 2002 [1962]. The Gutenberg Galaxy. Toronto: University of
Toronto.
Shannon, Claude E. and Warren Weaver. 1962 [1948/1949]. The Mathematical Theory
of Communication. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
--
Adam Lauder
W.P. Scott Chair for Research in E-Librarianship
Rm. 105E Scott Library
York University
4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA, M3J-1P3
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 416-736-2100 x55974
IAINBAXTER&raisonnE: http://archives.library.yorku.ca/iain_baxterand_raisonne/
