[experimental society conference: lancaster]

International conference: The Experimental Society, Lancaster University, 7-9 July 2010

Experimentation, with its distinctive way of joining action and knowledge, has played a crucial role in the culture and politics of modern society, but one that has a number of contradictory strands.  In one strand, experimentation is associated with the opening up of the closed medieval universe into an open world of endless possibility.  This story would include the development of the arts as an autonomous space for free exploration, and practices of social, cultural and political experimentation that invent new ways of living.  It had perhaps its leading advocate in Friedrich Nietzsche, with his notion of life as a continuous experiment, but in the contemporary world it is also manifested in the everyday creativity (de Certeau) with which people experiment ‘casually’ with new forms of humanity, technology, space, economic exchange and political participation (Hayles, Stelarc, Soja, Ghosh, Rheingold, Lury).  

 Yet the dominant strand to the modern experiment has surely been that of experimental science, which from the 17^th century offered to solve the problem of social dissensus by putting all truth claims to public test, thereby replacing the received certainties of traditional society with the new certainties of objective facts and natural laws (Shapin, Schaffer, Toulmin).  In performing the split between nature and culture that Bruno Latour calls the ‘modern constitution’, the experiment thus started its long relationship with social ordering, technology and power, which has helped to legitimise the instrumental paradigm of modern political action (Ezrahi), drive forward the grand projects of 20^th century high-modernist statecraft (Scott), and shape the contemporary world of evidence-based policy, clinical trials and audits.  Critiques of this development include early warnings about the iron cage of instrumental rationality (Weber), twentieth century unease about technocracy and the scientisation of politics (the Frankfurt school) and autonomous technology (Ellul, Winner), and contemporary concern about the proliferation of states of exception in which experimental subjection and the reduction of the human to ‘bare life’ becomes the norm (Agamben).



It is time to ask whether the experiment is now too complicit with power to act as a carrier of the hopes of (post)modernity, or whether its emancipatory potential can be renewed through a sustained inquiry into the different forms that it takes in science and technology, in the arts and in wider culture. If experimentation and innovation have become too integrated with imaginaries of technological control, and thereby with consequent externalisations (Wynne and Felt), then further large questions arise not only for politics, but also for environmental sustainability.
However, any such project also needs to be sensitive to ways in which the key role played by experimentation in the ordering of society seems to be shifting away from the special to the general experiment – from the experiment as a bounded episode situated in time and space, to a generalised, performative experimentality.  Driven by pervasive informationalisation, we can observe a number of interlinked trends, including: the acceleration and proliferation of feedback loops between action and reaction; the displacement of fixed structures by networks and dissipative structures; the abandonment of fixed goals for continuous repositioning; and the carrying out of knowledge-work in the context of application.  Such trends can be observed in domains as disparate as science and innovation, network-centric digital warfare, finance capitalism, product design, software engineering, new media and popular culture.  Do these add up to a systemic transformation of how society is being ordered? Are humans no longer in control of their experimental ‘projects’, and what does this mean for our conceptualisation of the human and of politics?  Does this create the conditions in which a new kind of experimental society might be possible? How might we imagine this, and perhaps influence its form?
This three-day international conference is the culmination of Lancaster’s year-long research programme Experimentality, which in six two-day workshops and a range of arts events in the North West has been exploring the varieties and transformations of experimentation.  It will draw on the inquiries held in these events: into experimentation and eventality, into the forms of subject and object implicated in experimentation, into the experimentality of matter itself and into the social and spatial organisation of experimentation in urban life.  It will draw on recent work on experimentation as having its own logic (Hacking), as being shaped into experimental systems which produce novelty and surprise (Rheinberger), as involving pervasive everyday improvisation (Ingold), as brought to closure in different ways (Galison) and as enacted in different experimental spaces or 'truth-spots' (Gieryn).  It will bring together scholars from a range of disciplines, and practitioners from different spheres of social life, to set out and debate different diagnoses and visions of the experimental society.  It will be an interdisciplinary, collaborative exploration of the power of experimentation to shape the future. 
Questions to be pursued in the conference will include the following:

• Is experimentality becoming a key trope of contemporary society?  Is it taking new forms, and if so with what implications? 
• How can we learn from the differences between the modes of experimentality operating within science, the arts and wider culture?
• How do notions of experimentality intersect with other dominant notions of social change, such as societal reflexivity, liquidity, knowing capitalism, cosmopolitanism, mobility and complexity?
• What dangers to human freedom are posed by new, experimental forms of power?
• If a shift is occurring in modern society's ontology, so that ‘society’ is itself becoming self-interrogating, what does this mean for the social sciences? 
• How can the power to shape our socio-technical future be distributed more evenly in society?  Can people and publics appropriate 'the experiment' so that it operates as an engine of human freedom harnessed to the task of building a common world, rather than as a tool of power?
• If modern society is implicated in, perhaps dependent upon, forms of uncontrolled, unintended or blind experiment, what forms of regulatory ordering might be required? 

Plenary speakers will include:

·        Ulrich Beck (London School of Economics)

·        Dieter Daniels (Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig)

·        Bülent Diken (Lancaster University)

·        Silvio Funtowicz (European Commission Joint Research Centre)

·        Josephine Green (Social Innovation, Philips Design)

·        Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen)

·        Scott Lash (Goldsmiths, University of London)

·        Helga Nowotny (European Research Council)

·        Jerome Ravetz (University of Oxford)

·        Gísli Pálsson (University of Iceland)

·        James Wilsdon (Royal Society)

For further information and to book a place please go to http://www.lancs.ac.uk/experimentality/event/international-conference-experimental-society

If you have a query please contact:
Anne-Marie Mumford
Institute for Advanced Studies
County South
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YD, UK
Email: a.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1524 510816
Fax: +44 (0) 1524 510857


 

[conference: foundations of information science]

Conference Date:
August 20-23, 2010

Deadline of Paper Submission:
May 20th, 2010

Notification of Acceptance:

 June 20th, 2010

Location:

Beijing

Continuing the series of FIS Conferences (Madrid 1994, Vienna 1996, Paris 2005) a new venue will be held in Beijing 2010. In our times, an increasing number of disciplines are dealing with information in very different ways: from information society and information technology to communication studies (and related subjects like codes, meaning, knowledge, and intelligence), as well as quantum information, bioinformation, knowledge economy, network science, computer science and Internet, to name but a few. At the same time, an increasing number of scientists in the East and the West have been engaged with the foundational problems underlying this development, to such an extent that the integration of disciplines revolving around information seems an idea whose time has come. A new science of information can be envisaged that explores the possibilities of establishing a common ground, of constructing a new scientific perspective that connects the different information-related disciplines and provides a new framework for transdisciplinary research.

Topics:

1.  The Impact of a New Science of Information on Society

2.  The Position of Intelligence Science in Information Science

       a. Information and Intelligence

       b. Intelligence Science as an Engineering Informatics in Information Science  

3.  The Role of Other Applied Information Science Disciplines (Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, Computer Mediated Communication, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Information and Communication Technologies and Society, Library and Documentation Science, …)

4.  The Basis of a New Science of Information

       a.  Feasibility of a single generic concept of information

       b.  Concepts, Principles, and Methodology of a “General Informatics” or “Theoretical Informatics”

       c.   Knowledge Structure of a Unified Theory of Information 

5.   Philosophy of Information

       a.   Information Ethics

       b.   Epistemology (Information and the Scientific Method, …)  

       c.   Ontology of Information   

       d.   Information and Philosophy of Science (Information and the System of Sciences – Transdisciplinarity – Consilience, …)

6.   Science of Information in Real-World Systems

       a.  Science of Information in Physical and Chemical Systems (Quantum Information, Molecular Recognition, …)

       b.  Science of Information in Living Systems (Biosemiotics, Systems Biology, Bioinformation, …)

       c.   Science of Information in Human / Social Systems

              i.  Science of Information in Human Cognition (Mind-Brain Theory, Consciousness, …)

              ii.  Science of Information in Human Communication (Linguistics, Social Networking,Communication Studies, …)

              iii.  Science of Information in Human Cooperation (Collective Intelligence, Knowledge Management, Advanced Intelligence, …)

7.   Science of the Information Society / Age (Information Society Theory, Internet Research, Social Informatics, New Media Studies, …)

Read more about the conference here.

[your amazing brain]

I came across this inspiring video via @ontarioliteracy on twitter:

[new media & innovative curriculum]

Via New Media Literacies Blog:

New Media Literacies Newsletter NML Announces its Monthly Webinar Series

Webinar Series NML has recently partnered with New Hampshire's Department of Education to facilitate a year-long professional development initiative using the new media literacies as a springboard for developing innovative curriculum. Our goal is to help foster a broader perspective of what it means to be media literate in the digital age, and offer tools for translating the social skills and cultural competencies outlined in the white paper Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (Jenkins et al., 2006) into meaningful and engaging learning experiences in the classroom and beyond. These NH educators are exploring the urgent challenges that 21st Century learners face by expanding their own learning experiences using a participatory, digital model of professional develmopment. In this context, educators are able to practice their own skills as teachers by creating, collaborating, connecting, and circulating with one another in an interactive, multi-media environment. Not only are they developing new materials for their own schools and districts, but also an 8-part webinar series focused on a comprehensive, practical understanding of the NML skills for the larger educational community. The 8-part series will begin on February 11th and share the framework of social skills and cultural competencies which shapes the work of New Media Literacies, and illustrate the skills by looking more closely at learning through such cultural phenomenon as computer game guilds, youtube video production, Wikipedia, fan fiction, Second Life and other virtual worlds, music remixing, social network sites, and cosplay. Each webinar will examine closely new curricular materials which have emerged from New Media Literacies, Global Kids, Harvard's GoodPlay Project, Common Sense Media, the George Lucas Foundation, and other projects which are seeking to introduce these skills into contemporary educational practices and leave participants with plenty of opportunities to take the material, information and methods back into their classroom. We will host the first webinar on Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 7pm EST and focus on the new media literacies, judgment and appropriation as well as copyright, fair use, and creative commons. Our special guests will be Flourish Klink, a graduate student at MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program, and Erin Reilly, NML Research Director. See the full listing of upcoming webinars and get information on how to join the sessions at http://projectnml.ning.com/page/nmls-monthly-webinar-series.

[end of term marking!]

This is just too eloquent:





NB: I found the image included in Richard Haswell's article "The Complexities of Responding to Student Writing" and he references the image as: Composition Chronicle: Newsletter for Writing Teachers 8 (3), April 1995, p. 11.

[social networking conference: wolverhampton uni]

Wolverhampton Internet and Technology Society (WITS) together with the Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group are hosting the 1^st Social Networking in Cyberspace conference in April, 2010. We welcome contributions from scholars in the social and behavioural sciences and media and information disciplines, regardless of theoretical orientation.

The conference, which is to be sponsored by the Research Centre in Applied Sciences (RCAS), will be a one-day event and will take place on Friday the 23^rd of April, 2010. The Venue for the conference will be the Lighthouse Media Centre in Wolverhampton (Please click here for Map).

Call for papers

We invite potential presenters to submit an abstract (no longer than 300 words) for peer-review. The deadline for submission of the abstract is October 30^th, 2009. A decision on this abstract will be made by November 20^th, 2009 and authors will be notified via email soon after.

Abstracts should be submitted to SNIC@wlv.ac.uk

Subsequently, all presenters will be invited to prepare a paper for publication. The International Journal of Internet Science will be publishing a peer-reviewed selection of the best papers from the conference.

Papers should be submitted to SNIC@wlv.ac.uk by the 28^th of May 2010.

Postgraduate poster competition

We will be running a postgraduate poster competition on the day of the conference. Prizes will be awarded for the best posters on the day (further information to follow). We invite postgraduate students to submit an abstract by October 30^th 2009 for consideration.

Keynote Speakers

The following have been confirmed as keynote speakers at the conference:

Professor Mike Thelwall: University of Wolverhampton – “Detecting and analysing emotion in social networking sites”

Doctor Monica Whitty: Nottingham Trent University.

Fees

£80 standard rate

Discount rate for presenters (£60)

Discount rate for students (£50)

The fee includes morning and afternoon coffee and lunch.

Registration

Conference registration opens in January 2010

Important dates

Abstract submission deadline: 30^th October 2009

Notice of acceptance deadline: 20^th November 2009

Conference date: 23^rd April 2010

Full papers deadline: 28^th May 2010

contact us

If you have any enquiries or would like to contact us regarding the suitability of your research for the conference, please email us on SNIC@wlv.ac.uk

[financial crisis :: humor]

[open access journal pilot project]

Via Jacqueline Wilson, CDL Senior Associate for Shared Content:

"This ground-breaking agreement enables UC-authored articles accepted for publication in most of the 2000+ Springer journals to be published through Springer Open Choice, allowing full and immediate access to all readers. These articles will also be fully accessible through UC’s eScholarship publishing platform. UC authors pay no additional publication fees to support this open access model."

A task force appointed by the Scholarly Communications Officers (SCO) worked with the California Digital Library (CDL) to prepare information on the UC/Springer Open Access Journal Publishing Pilot, originally announced in January, for distribution to UC authors on each campus. The information can be found on the Reshaping Scholarly Communication site at http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/alternatives/springer_faq.html. This site includes a FAQ, a link to the Springer journals covered by the pilot as well as a short list of titles excluded from the program. It is expected that campuses will customize the information to suit their local audience.

As was noted in the original message about this arrangement, it will be important to the success of the pilot that as many UC authors as possible know about this open access opportunity. Scholarly Communications Officers and others will distribute information about this agreement to appropriate faculty and other authors on their campus as part of the local publicity plans that they have developed.

Final versions of the Springer journal articles published during the pilot will be available in the eScholarship Repository beginning in the fall.

CDL is pleased to have made this ground-breaking arrangement with Springer on behalf of UC authors and the Task Force is looking forward to assessing the results of this experiment as it unfolds over the next two years.

UC/Springer Open Access Journal Publishing Pilot Task Group:

Ivy Anderson (CDL)
Catherine Mitchell (CDL)
Margaret Phillips (Berkeley)
Jacqueline Wilson (CDL, Chair)

[cognitive leadership for transdisciplinary research]

Reading "Enhancing Transdisciplinary Research Through Collaborative Leadership" by Barbara Grey.


Some interesting points:

• Groupthink refers to the suppression of differences within a team and its inability to bridge power differences
• the absence of process skills (e.g., decision making, problem solving, conflict resolution, information exchange, coordination, and boundary management) has also been noted as a crucial detriment to collaboration
• Viewing the leadership of transdisciplinary initiatives as a cognitive task means that leadership involves the management of meaning
• Transformational leaders high on charisma,
  for example, are seen as powerful shapers of their followers’ aspirations which positively affects team performance
• In transdisciplinary research, the cognitive tasks of leadership largely consist of visioning and framing
• Transdisciplinary leaders need to be able to envision how various disciplines may overlap in constructive ways that could generate scientific breakthroughs and new understanding
  in a specific problem area
• Structural-leadership tasks address the team’s need for coordination and information exchange— both within the team and between the team and external actors
• Research on brokers (who occupy key positions between others) in transdisciplinary networks reveals they are high on the Big Five Personality factor of openness, displayed an ability to imagine and propose potential collaborations among researchers, and engaged in active transdisciplinary mentoring of junior faculty
• Among the boundary-spanning tasks identified as key for transdisciplinary teams are
  gaining and maintaining sound institutional commitment and support,17 acquiring funds to manage emerging areas of research and training, devoting adequate attention to and securing funds for infrastructure, and building bridges to other centers and new disciplines
• Attending to the process dynamics of a transdisciplinary team demands an especially important set of interpersonal skills that are critical to successful team collaboration

[rim competes with apple's app store]

Copied from Larry Dignan's article on zdnet:

"Research in Motion launched its BlackBerry application store—dubbed App World—and the pricing model will immediately draw comparison’s to Apple’s App Store set-up. That comparison, however, only goes so far.

For starters, RIM’s App World pricing model has raised a bit of a ruckus since it veers a bit from Apple’s scheme (Techmeme). But a business audience isn’t going to sweat a $2.99 application compared to a 99 cent minimum priced app. And RIM’s audience is likely to even pay higher prices if the App World can actually deliver software with a real business use. And there are so many tiers to the App World model that RIM could have said “charge what you want.”

But the biggest takeaway from the App World pricing model is that higher prices mean more for developers (see FAQ). RIM needs more developers on its bandwagon since the iPhone is the shiny object in the mobile world. Simply put, money talks and RIM plans to use it. Matthew Miller notes that RIM’s pricing model shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Sure RIM does offer free apps, but developers aren’t likely to offer them. Given developers pay an upfront fee why would you pay RIM to distribute a free app? RIM’s message with App World appears to be: Frivolous and fun apps need not apply.

Will RIM’s App World work?

My hunch is that RIM’s App World will do well, but isn’t going to a success as measured by Apple’s store. RIM’s store is likely to be more BlackBerry-ish—the applications will be more business focused, tool oriented and won’t feature hot games.

RIM also has an app management issue on its hands. Apple’s App Store has to support just the iPhone and iPod touch. RIM’s applications will work on these models:

• BlackBerry Bold 9000 smartphone
• BlackBerry Storm smartphone
• BlackBerry Pearl Flip Series
• BlackBerry Curve 8300 Series
• Black Berry Curve 8900 smartphone
• BlackBerry 8800 Series
• BlackBerry Pearl Series

The experience on all of those models will vary. For instance, a game on the Storm will be different than the Bold and Curve. How will RIM navigate that conundrum? As a developer those models mean more complications.

Other takeaways from the RIM App World effort:

• A PayPal account is required with App World for customers and developers;
• Developers from around the world can contribute except for those from Belarus, Myanmar/Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
• To submit an application there’s a $200 fee, which will be refunded if the software is rejected."

[viral video for ai - win some money]

The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour

AISB Video Competition

This is a call to both AISB members and non-members to take part in a competition for an online video clip that will contribute to the public understanding of any aspect of the area known as Artificial Intelligence. The video material should be in English, of three minutes maximum duration, and available online (e.g., on YouTube).

Submissions should take the form of an email with the URL to the videomaterial, contact details of the participant(s), and a free-form statement from all authors stating that the submission is their own work, and that they grant the SSAISB non-exclusive rights to use it as it finds appropriate. Deadline for all submissions is 23:59 GMT on 15 March 2009. All submissions should be sent to video_competition@aisb.co.uk. The submissions will be evaluated by a panel of three AISB members, of which two student members (all selected and appointed by the AISB committee).

There will be 3 prizes of £300, £150 and £75. The panel reserves the right to withhold a prize if no submission is deemed appropriate. All panel decisions are final and cannot be contested.

see more about the call here: http://www.aisb.org.uk/publicunderstanding/video_competition.shtml

nb: image from wired

[literate cities]

Six key elements are analysed in this study to dechipher which city is the most literate (American cities only) in 2008. These include: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources and are then compared to the population rate (but only in cities greater than 250,000).

Somewhat oddly, the study does NOT include "reading test scores or how often people read, but what kinds of literary resources are available and used."

"Cities that ranked higher for having more bookstores also have a higher proportion of people buying books online, the analysis found, and cities with newspapers that have high per-capita circulation rates also have more people reading newspapers online. Likewise, cities that ranked higher for having well-used libraries also have more booksellers."

The author of the study, Dr. John Miller, makes a very interesting observation:

"While it is too early in this study to draw conclusions, it is nevertheless striking that newspaper readership rates in the US’s global economic competitors are significantly higher than in the US. Since literacy is generally regarded as a barometer of a nation’s social, cultural, and economic health, perhaps these findings are cause for national concern."

According to the USA Today report, "Preliminary results of a related study examining international literacy paint a less optimistic outlook for the USA. It notes that in per-capita paid newspaper circulation, the USA ranks only 31st in the world, far behind other countries, including Aruba, Liechtenstein and Japan."