Scan CFP

Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture

Special Issue: The In/Visibilities of Code

Guest Editors: Esther Milne, Jenny Kennedy, Lawson Fletcher (Swinburne University of Technology)

Following the CODE 2012 conference, held at Swinburne University, this special issue of Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture will explore the mechanics and aesthetics of code, the underlying force of contemporary media, games and art, as it moves through and brings into relation different registers, objects, domains and practices. We are interested in how code is hidden and surfaced within these strata, both critically and artistically, for various cultural and aesthetic purposes.

By considering both the transversal logic of code and its varying degrees of opacity, we hope to connect the formal notion of code with its cultural definition, and in doing so consider the imbrication of aesthetics and politics that code implies. As a technical process and semiotic principle, code both enables and obscures, and we especially welcome work that excavates the micropolitical dimensions of this operation.

Code is always composite, always transversal, and as such, its exploration allows us to problematise the intellectual binaries and blindspots common to the fields in which we work, such as interactivity, transparency, agency, intentionality, absence/presence, public/private, programmer/user, material/immaterial. We also hope to problematise the notion of code itself: what can/not be captured by code? And what might a focus on code itself obscure?

We invite papers and artworks (including commentaries) that examine the in/visibilities of code in all its manifestations through case studies, histories and theory. We welcome work emerging from and traversing games studies, media arts, (new) media studies and related fields, as well as emerging domains of software studies, platform studies and new materialism. Relevant themes include, but are not limited to, code and:

- materiality, immateriality, new materialism
- in/visibility, public, private
- agency, intentionality, autonomy
- identities, affect, bodies
- noise, randomness, glitch
- space, place, (geo)location
- text, intertext, creativity
- security, exploit, failure
- governance, regulation, law
- process, procedure, platform
- history, prehistory, genealogy

Submissions
Abstracts of 200-300 words are to be submitted by 22nd March 2013.
Email: codeconference@swin.edu.au with ‘Scan Abstracts Submission’ as your subject heading.

Authors will be notified by the beginning of April if their abstract has been accepted and will be invited to submit a full paper for peer review. Full papers are to be submitted by 14th June 2013.

In addition to articles, this special issue will include artworks, artwork commentaries and critical commentaries.

We encourage authors to suggest artworks and other media, particularly if featured at CODE 2012, to accompany their article. Please include a note in your submission if this is the case. It will be the responsibility of authors to obtain permissions for inclusion of artworks.

Artists are invited to submit an artist’s statement; we also welcome relevant artworks without commentaries. For artworks, please submit a 250 word outline of the proposed work, including links to supporting documentation.

Artists and those wishing to include artworks and/or accompanying media should include in their submission relevant format and file size details.

Critical commentaries addressing themes which emerged out of the conference or in relation to exhibited artworks are also invited.

Full articles are to be no more than 5000 words. Artist statements and commentaries are to be 500 words and critical commentaries 1500 words.

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