Fri May 03, 2013 00:00 - Sun May 05, 2013

Buffalo, New York
United States of America

International Conference, Workshops and Exhibition
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York, May 3-5, 2013
http://mediacities.net

The fourth MediaCity reflects on pluralities and globalities, on MEDIACITIES everywhere

What new lines of inquiry and emergent relations between urbanity and digital media are found in non-Western cities, in post-Capitalist cities, in cities hosting civic turbulence or crossing international boundaries? What urban-medial relations are taking shape differently in urban milieux that may have been heretofore overlooked? These cities are deserving of more attention than ever before, as sites of population growth, of new cultural and social formations, of new entanglements between urban life and contemporary media, communications and information technologies, and more. MEDIACITIES promises to expand our understanding of both media and the city today, and to articulate new sites of practice and working methods for an expanding field.

In addition to a conference program of panels selected from an international call for papers, MEDIACITIES will feature keynote speakers, including Benjamin H. Bratton, Associate Professor of Visual Arts and Director of D:GP, The Center for Design and Geopolitics at the University of California, San Diego; Mike Crang, Reader in Cultural Geography at Durham University in the UK; and Stephen Kovats, cultural and media researcher, formerly artistic director of transmediale, Berlin’s festival for art and digital culture, and international program curator at V2_Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam.

MEDIACITIES will feature an exhibition of commissioned works that confront different aspects of the contemporary entanglements of digital media and urban life in cities around the world today – spaces of appearance, of exchange, and of identity. Artists in the exhibition include Paolo Cirio, Julian Oliver, Stephanie Rothenberg, and Antoine Schmidt.

MEDIACITIES workshops introduce skills and themes relevant to this year’s conference focus on multiplicities. Workshops include Interactive Planning Istanbul, examining the emergent ecologies of interaction between socio-economical relationships and the structure of a city using computational design tools; NeuroVision, exploring the urban aesthetics of spaces in Buffalo with artist Ursula Damm via a web-based sandbox for Generative Video Processing; Neo-provincialism, a knowledge-share workshop addressing the concept of neo-provincialism through connecting cybernetics and urban agriculture to their adjacent spatial and xeno-spatial implications; and Digital Media in Urban Spaces, mapping and visualizing urban digital media based on a methodology for empirical research using GPS and geo-tagging techniques.

Organizers:
Jordan Geiger, Omar Khan, Mark Shepard

Mon Dec 17, 2012 23:59

Buffalo, New York
United States of America

MediaCity 4: MediaCities - Call for Urban Works
DEADLINE: December 17, 2012

MediaCities
International Conference, Workshops and Exhibition
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
May 3-5, 2013

MediaCities is pleased to announce an open call for projects in and around the city of Buffalo, New York, in conjunction with the MediaCities conference.

Following this year’s theme, the event will instigate a number of new urban works of media-architecture. These may take various formats and physical configurations: a constructed intervention, an event, a deployable device or a combination thereof.

Proposed projects address specific themes around pluralities and globalities, particularly as they appear in some of the possible topics that have already been identified in the call for papers:
• the contexts of non-Western cities and post-industrial societies (Other Urbans);
• protest, public space, and contested shared urban events (Uncommons);
• new life in dead and dying urban milieux (Zero Growth Cities);
• cross-scale urban landscapes (Media Geographies) and,
• trans-national urban cities (Bordervilles).

More information on these topics is available here: http://mediacities.net

We are interested in exploring a multitude of media cities, beyond recognized and robust bodies of work that privilege familiar uses of media (such as urban screens) and cities (such as major European and American centers of industry, finance and culture).

We anticipate commissioning 3 projects with budgets up to 5000 USD.

To apply, send the following information as a single PDF to with the subject line “PROPOSAL: MediaCities Urban Works” before December 17, 2012:

+ Project Title

+ One-Sentence Summary (50 words)

+ Description (500 words)
Briefly describe the project concept and its relation to MediaCities in both thematic and practical terms. What issues does the project address? What specific sites or site conditions will your project occupy or affect? Who is your intended audience? How will they experience your project? What is its duration or performance period? If this is a built work, is it to be permanent or temporary? What special permits do you anticipate you will require, if any?

+ Technical Specifications (250 words)
Clearly outline the technologies involved and the technical resources required to realize the project.

+ Budget (500 words)
List all expenses for the project, including any costs for equipment rental, materials and supplies, fabrication, shipping, as well as an artist fee.

+ Timeline (250 words)
Provide a timeline for project production, installation, and deinstallation. Describe any requirements for planning, fabrication or installation that will need permitting, staging or site research prior to the conference, or deinstallation afterwards.

+ CV (2 pages)
Provide a 2-page summary of your most recent exhibitions, publications, education and other accomplishments.

+ Supporting Materials and Work Samples
1) Provide a URL to Supporting Materials (video, images, sound files, drawings, diagrams, etc) that further describe your proposed project.
2) Provide URLs for Work Samples from previous projects that relate to the proposed project.

Send all questions to cfp-urbanworks [at] mediacities [dot] net

Mon Dec 17, 2012 00:00

MediaCities
http://mediacities.net
International Conference, Workshops and Exhibition
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
May 3-5, 2013

DEADLINE: December 17, 2012

MediaCities is pleased to announce an open call for workshops organized in conjunction with the conference, to be held in Buffalo, New York from May 3-5, 2013.

We invite workshop proposals that address specific themes around pluralities and globalities, particularly as they appear in some of the topics that have already been identified in the call for papers:

• the contexts of non-Western cities and post-industrial societies (Other Urbans);
  
• protest, public space, and contested shared urban events (Uncommons);
  
• new life in dead and dying urban milieux (Zero Growth Cities);
  
• cross-scale urban landscapes (Media Geographies) and,
  
• trans-national urban cities (Bordervilles).
  

More information on these topics is available here: http://mediacities.net
MediaCities workshops can take either of the following forms:

• Workshops designed to share knowledge in emerging areas amongst a small group of people within an intimate, peer-oriented setting. This may be through presentations, demonstrations, field trips, actions or events or any combination thereof.
  
• Skill-share workshops that provide hands-on experience in an area of general interest to the MediaCities community, including (but not limited to): mobile and locative media, platforms for embedded and distributed sensing, urban data visualization, ambient informatics and responsive systems.

A workshop proposal should contain at least the following information:

• Names, affiliations and bios of main organizers.
  
• Motivation and rationale for the workshop.
  
• For knowledge-share workshops:
  
  • a draft of the Invitation to Participate to be issued.
    
  • expected number and format of presentations, demonstrations, actions or events.
  
  
• For skill-share workshops:
  
  • an outline of the topics to be covered.
    
  • a description of required skill-level of participants.
    
  • a list of required tools and equipment.
  
  
• A list of technical resources and space requirements for the workshop.
  
• The workshop deadlines, both internal and external.
  
• Expected number of participants.
  
• An itemized budget indicating all expenses and income for the workshop.

Email proposals as a single PDF to cfp-workshops [at] mediacities [dot] net with the subject line “PROPOSAL: MediaCities Workshops.” Send questions to chairs [at] mediacities [dot] net.

Sat Jan 05, 2013 00:00

Departments of Architecture and Media Study
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

APPLICATION DEADLINE: JANUARY 5, 2013

Computing has changed the way we think, feel, and operate in the modern world. This has profound implications for the way we conceive, perceive and interact within built environments. Parametric and generative design methods, digital visualization techniques, and digital fabrication processes have altered the ways by which architecture is designed and constructed. At the same time, a wide range of mobile, embedded and networked media, communications and information systems present new opportunities to shape the experience of the built environment and the choices we make there. Moving beyond screen-based simulations and interactive media, media-architecture hybrids incorporate both the virtual and material dimensions of everyday life. As sites of practice for the media arts and architecture converge, new avenues for research and experimentation arise that require an expanded knowledgebase. Recognizing this challenge, the departments of Architecture and Media Study at the University at Buffalo offer a dual-degree program in Media Arts and Architecture, one of the only such programs in the country.

Working with distinguished faculty in the departments of Architecture and Media Study, students conduct research and creative explorations across a variety of areas, including (but not limited to) responsive architecture, networked performance, physical computing, parametric and generative design, digital fabrication, mobile and locative media, media geography, pervasive gaming, cultural data analytics and ambient informatics. With a focus on providing a critical context for experimental practice, this program provides the advanced skills necessary to engage contemporary confluences of the media arts and architecture.

This cross-disciplinary program offers two tracks: one leading to the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) + Master of Science in Architecture (MS) for students with a prior degree in the arts, design or related fields; and one leading to the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) + Master of Architecture (MArch) for students with a pre-professional degree in architecture. In addition, for students seeking an international perspective on this evolving field, we offer a post-graduate, dual-degree in Media Architecture in cooperation with the Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar, Germany.

For more information, visit:

• Department of Media Study
  
• Department of Architecture
  

Questions? Contact:
Mark Shepard shepard6 [at] buffalo [dot] edu
Director, Media Arts and Architecture Program (MAAP)
Associate Professor of Architecture and Media Study

Mon Nov 12, 2012 23:59

Buffalo, New York
United States of America

MediaCity 4: MediaCities
http://www.mediacities.net
International Conference, Workshops and Exhibition
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
May 3-5, 2013

Deadline: 12 November, 2012

The fourth MediaCity conference reflects on pluralities and globalities, on MediaCities everywhere.

What new lines of inquiry and emergent relations between urbanity and digital media are found in non-Western cities, in post-Capitalist cities, in cities hosting civic turbulence or crossing international boundaries? What urban-medial relations are taking shape differently in urban milieux that may have been heretofore overlooked? These cities are deserving of more attention than ever before, as sites of population growth, of new cultural and social formations, of new entanglements between urban life and contemporary media, communications and information technologies, and more. MediaCities promises to expand our understanding of both media and the city today, and to articulate new sites of practice and working methods for an expanding field.

This fourth MediaCity conference inaugurates its transition to a roving event taking place every two years in different cities around the world. Additional calls will follow for proposals to host the next event as well as for workshops and media art and architecture projects.

Topics
Areas of interest may fall broadly into several themes, with the assumption that others will appear in the process of proposals and discussion leading up to the event, always expanding our lexicon and mental maps of MediaCities globally. These themes are: Other Urbans, Uncommons, Zero Growth Cities, Media Geographies and Bordervilles.

Other Urbans

MediaCities are typically associated with post-industrial societies, Western and Asian cultures, and urban centers whose economic bases are rooted in technology. But many nonwestern cities around the world are rapidly evolving under the aegis of ubiquitous computing, and urban living in these places appears differently as well. Now is the time to recognize and identify the new models, problems and lives of nonwestern and other MediaCities as relevant to all cities. Other Urbans concerns the non-Western MediaCity, but also the marginalized Western (Detroit, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Belfast, Leipzig) as well as the experimental (Songdo, Masdar).

Uncommons

What novel shifts are found now at the nexus of protest and public space in cities, and what roles are digital media playing? How are we to understand the enduring implications for events of 2010-2011 and after, from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to whatever unfolds up until the conference itself, as each suggest diverse mutations in urban, medial and participatory formations? Lately we are seeing new catalytic reactions between these three elements. While the cases are familiar (WikiLeaks, Tahrir Square’s life on Twitter, OWS’s “human microphones”), their potentials to intertwine matters of economic, cultural and other representation suggest the start of enduring changes to how public space and public discourse appear within and between global cities. Each holds potential to recognize and reform our thinking of public space and public discourse irrevocably as an “uncommons.” No longer modeled on a rural pasture and no longer only a problematic of shared resources and individual interests, uncommons describe novel formations located in contested shared urban events.

Zero Growth Cities

This theme regards relations between growth, economy and MediaCities in diverse cases where urban landscapes and populations once considered dead or dying are rejuvenating themselves: an urban afterlife of sorts, often with clever mixtures of new and old technologies. How are MediaCities being newly inhabited and opportunistically developed in response to market conditions, and what creative and theoretical responses can we make to these developments? And what of those cities experiencing no growth (or even shrinkage)? Do wireless networks perform similarly in these cities as elsewhere? How do sensate and sentient landscapes affect life in cities whose populations don’t otherwise change? What vibrant new urban events and situations are appearing in these sometimes overlooked places?

Media Geographies

Today we recognize terms like "landscape" and "urban" to be non-oppositional - instead, we embrace the view that environment, social relations and even human subjectivity must be seen as interrelated ecologies. What roles do digital media play in this shift, and what new practices under a rubric of “Media Geographies” can it all suggest? For example, how are we to operate across scales, as critics, scholars, artists, designers? From bodies to landscapes that are at once local and global in scale, media geographies ask how this trans-scalar subject constitutes a form of urbanism. This theme critically engages spatial, social, ecological and philosophical implications as it mines the media cities we know for urbanities that we have overlooked.

Bordervilles

How are urban conditions around national borders inflected by ubiquitous computing? What mediated forms of citizenship are emerging at these border zones, and how do they differ around the world? Bordervilles are often unofficially twinned cities that share common conditions (ecological, micro-economic, climatic) but not others (lingual, macro-economic), all of which can be affected by digital media that transcend physical boundaries and sometimes skirt national regulation. What new mediated bordervilles are to be seen, and what urban conditions do they propose? These MediaCities are diverse and ripe for study. Some include an expanded border region, (San Diego/Tijuana, Buffalo/Toronto) while others are cities divided across nations (Istanbul, Jerusalem, Shenhzhen / Hong Kong).

Host
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

Disciplines
Architecture, Art, Computer Science, Interaction Design, Geography, Media, Sociology, Urban Planning

Conference Chairs
Jordan Geiger, Omar Khan, Mark Shepard

Submission Requirements
Paper abstracts Due 12 November, 2012 by 11:59pm GMT, uploaded to the conference’s EasyChair website @ http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mc4
Abstracts should address global pluralities of MediaCities as the focus in this year's conference, whether that corresponds to one of the sample topics described herein or one of your own interest. The proposed presentation may relate academic research, a creative project or other subject matter but should not exceed 500 words. Abstracts will be double blind peer-reviewed by representatives of a wide range of expertise in relations between media and urban issues today. Send questions to chairs [at] media cities [dot] net

Important Dates

October 8, 2012 Call for Paper Abstracts

November 12, 2012 Abstracts Due

Dec 31, 2012 Acceptances Issued

March 1, 2013 Final Papers Due

May 3-5 2013 MediaCity 4: MediaCities

For more information, visit:

MediaCity Project - http://www.mediacityproject.org
MediaCity 2010 - http://www.mediacityproject.org/en_EN/events/conference-10/
MediaCity 2008 - http://www.mediacityproject.org/en_EN/events/conference-08/
MediaCity 2006 - http://www.mediacityproject.org/en_EN/events/conference-06/