ISEA2020: 26th International Symposium on Electronic Art Montreal, Canada, May 19-24, 2020

Conference website	http://isea2020.isea-international.org/
Submission link	https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=isea20200
Submission deadline	December 16, 2019
Notification of acceptance	January 13, 2020

ISEA2020, 26th International Symposium on Electronic Art

May 19 - 24 2020, Montreal, Canada

 

ISEA is one of the world’s most prominent international arts and technology events, bringing together scholarly, artistic, and scientific domains in an interdisciplinary discussion and showcase of creative productions applying new technologies in art, interactivity, and electronic and digital media.

ISEA2020/MTL connect will be held from May 19 to 24, 2020 in Montreal, Canada.

The 26th International Symposium on Electronic Art turns towards the theme of "Why Sentience?" We invite submissions in the following categories:

1. Full papers
2. Short papers 
3. Panel and roundtable discussions
4. Posters / Demos 
5. Institutional Presentations 
6. Workshops / Tutorials 
7. Artist talks / Work-In-Progress presentations
8. Artistic works (including interactive works, concerts, performances, screenings, installations, site-specific works, etc.)

Please note: incomplete or late applications will not be considered.

MAIN THEME: WHY SENTIENCE?

ISEA2020 turns towards the theme of Sentience. Sentience describes the ability to feel or perceive. To be sentient is thus to be “capable of feeling,” from the Latin sentientem (nominative sentiens) while “feeling,” the present participle of sentire “to feel,” refers to “being conscious” of something. To feel or perceive something at first seems to suggest that sentience is a uniquely human trait. Yet, sentience implies sensing the world and acting on it across all entities—animal, plant, mineral, environment or machine—rather than cutting things into binaries: human/non-human, animate/inanimate, alive/dead, human/machine, nature/technology.

ISEA2020 will be fully dedicated to examining the resurgence of sentience—feeling-sensing-making sense—in recent art and design, media studies, science and technology studies, philosophy, anthropology, history of science and the natural scientific realm—notably biology, neuroscience and computing. We ask: why sentience? Why and how does sentience matter? Why have artists and scholars become interested in sensing and feeling beyond, with and around our strictly human bodies and selves? Why has this notion been brought to the fore in an array of disciplines in the 21st century?

ISEA2020 invites artists, designers, scholars, researchers, innovators and creators to contribute to this growing discussion about our sentient world and to address the following questions: 

- Why sentience now? Why has this ability to feel (or perhaps, inability or underused ability to feel) become crucial to “our” historical present (indeed, whose historical present)? 
- What are the histories and geographies, places and non-places, temporalities, processes, specificities and intimacies, residual colonialisms of sentience, as explored in media arts and technological aesthetics? 
- Should sentience be a genuine part of a climate or environmental aesthetics and politics? 
- Is sentience queer? Is it an alternative to and a deep questioning of human/nonhuman binarism, identity categories and heteronormativity? Does the investigation of sentience redefine queerness? Is sentience an emerging queerness?
- How is sentience investigated in Indigenous media arts, aesthetics, philosophy, humanities and social sciences?
- Is there such a thing as a politics of sentience? Is this politics necessarily progressive? Could it be deceptive? What is sentience’s relationship to power and knowledge?
- How does sentience intersect with ideologies of ability and disability? Who counts as worthy of rights and in what way? What would constitute a neuro-diverse politics and aesthetics of sentience?
- What is the role of sentience in a post-factual world? In the age of neoliberalism and globalization? 
-Where are the sites that sentience takes place? In the laboratory, the street, the gallery, the museum, the forest, inside bodies, the planet? 
- How does sentience reframe contemporary understandings of artificial intelligence, perception, cognition, and consciousness?

 

SUB-THEMES

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. We request that all submissions are formatted according to the ISEA2020 submission guidlines and/or template and send via EasyChair in pdf. 

Please note: incomplete or late applications will not be considered.

The official language of the event is English. Submissions must be written in English.

ALL submissions must be accompanied by signed copyright form available here. 

More information on ISEA2020 website: isea2020.isea-international.org

ISEA2020 welcomes submissions in the following categories:

    1. Academic 

• Full Paper (peer-reviewed): 5-8 pages in length (including references). Accepted papers will be afforded 20-minutes oral presentation with 10 minutes Q&A. Download template.

• Short Paper (peer-reviewed): 2-4 pages in length (including references). Accepted paper will be afforded 15-minutes oral presentation with 5 minutes Q&A. Download template.

• Panels: maximum 6 pages in length. Accepted panels discussions will take the form of moderator-led groups of 3–5 experts responding to questions on the selected topic. 30+15 to 60+30 minutes allotted presentation time depending on number of speakers. Submissions should contain an introduction and abstracts from individual discussants (3-6 people). Download template.

Please make sure your PDF submission is using ISEA2020 template and is completely anonymized (submissions will be double-blind peer-reviewed). 

Note: Authors are requested to remove their names and institutions ahead of submission for review and to add back their names for camera-ready version. Any other features that might identify the authors must be removed ahead of submission.

Submissions must be accompanied by signed copyright form.

 

    2. Presentations & Discussions

• Posters / Demonstrations: Maximum 1 page. Accepted posters proposals will be invited to submit poster with template provided.
  Posters will be published in the conference proceedings and will be allotted a wall space (with electricity and Internet connectivity by request). Download template.

• Institutional presentations: Maximum 1 page. 10 minutes is the allotted presentation time and space for presenting posters, brochures, banners, etc.
  Specific space requirements for larger-format demonstrations and displays must be specified in proposal. Presenters of institutional presentations are not eligible for symposium fee discounts. Institutional Presentations from communities working on matters pertaining to the themes of ISEA symposia, based on their relevance to contemporary trends, developments, and debates, intended as opportunities for networking and as a forum for institutions such as galleries, museums, NGOs, networks, schools, and companies to introduce themselves to the community and discuss for example organizational, financial, and curatorial matters. Dowload template.

Please make sure your PDF submission is using ISEA2020 template. Presentations & Discussions proposals do not need to be anonymized.

Submissions must be accompanied by signed copyright form.

 

    3. Talks & Tutorials

• Workshops / Tutorials: Proposals for half, full or two-day workshops during ISEA2020. Workshops will be announced on the ISEA2020 website, and organisers may release their own call for submissions and may submit a one-page abstract of their workshop proposal to be included in the proceedings. To propose a workshop:
  • Proposal maximum 3 pages.
  • Title of the workshop/tutorial
  • Duration: half day or full day
  • Abstract (ready to be released on the symposium website)
  • Rationale/target audience of the workshop (academics, professionals, general public?)
  • Short bios of the organisers
  • Plan of how to solicit participation
  • Preferred venue and necessary special equipment
  • Your preference to possibly exhibit outcomes of the workshop during the symposium
  • Links to any relevant online material
  • Download template.
• Artist Talks / Work in progress: Maximum 1 page with links to appropriate documentation materials. Accepted proposals will be allotted 10 minutes presentation time to showcase artworks, design artifacts, or works in progress. Artist talk / work-in-progress presentation proposals do not need to be anonymized. Download template.

Please make sure your PDF submission is using ISEA2020 template. Talks & Tutorials proposals do not need to be anonymized.

Submissions must be accompanied by signed copyright form.

 

    4. Artistic works (November 12 2019 Update)

We welcome submission of interactive works, concerts, performances, screenings, installations, site-specific works, interdisciplinary projects, animation, video, experimental animation, photography, and events in the public space. 

Please note that we also welcome artworks that do not directly respond to the themes of this symposium but are otherwise relevant to the scope of ISEA symposium. We would like to especially encourage early career and emerging artists to submit their work.

Application Requirements:
In A SINGLE PDF FILE, please provide the following information:

• Application form. Please use submission template (download here)
• CV
• Estimate budget and an indication of existing financial support
• Submission must be accompanied by signed copyright form available here

If relevant, please mention:

• Venue/location preference (if known), OR, venue/location requirements and constraints
• Time of day and date preference (if known), OR, time of day and date requirements and constraints
• Estimate project timeline

Artistic works proposals do not need to be anonymized.

For more details on how to contribute in any of the above categories and review process, see our submission page here: http://isea2020.isea-international.org/submission-guidelines/

COMMITTEES

Academic Committee

Academic Chairs:
Christine Ross - McGill University (Montreal, Canada)
Chris Salter - Concordia University/Hexagram (Montreal, Canada)

Members:

• Pau Alsina - Open University of Catalunya UOC (Barcelona, Spain)
• Joel Ong - York University (Toronto, Canada)
• Philippe Pasquier - Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada)
• Louise Poissant - UQAM & Fonds de recherche du Québec Société et culture (Montreal, Canada)
• Bart Simon - Concordia University (Montreal, Canada)
• Christa Somerer - University of Art and Design (Linz, Austria)
• Jonathan Sterne - McGill University (Montreal, Canada)
• Marcelo Wanderley - McGill University (Montreal, Canada)

Artistic Committee

Artistic Chairs 
Caroline Andrieux - Darling Foundry (Montreal, Canada)
Alice Jim - Concordia University (Montreal, Canada)
Erandy Vergara - Printemps numérique (Montreal, Canada)

Members:

• Sofian Audry - Clarkson University (N.Y., U.S.A.)
• Skawennati Fragnito - Concordia University (Montreal, Canada)
• Bertrand Gervais - UQAM (Montreal, Canada)
• Christiane Paul - The New School (N.Y., U.S.A.)
• Cheryl Sim - Phi Foundation (Montreal, Canada)
• Tamar Tembeck - OBORO (Montreal, Canada)
• Irma Vila - Open University of Catalunya UOC (Barcelona, Spain)
• Soh Yeong Roh - The Art Center Nabi, Seoul, South Korea

CONTACT

All questions about submissions should be emailed to: isea2020@printempsnumerique.ca