13th International Seminar on the Origins and History of Cinema: Virtual worlds in early cinema: devices, aesthetics and audiences

ONLINE EDITION October 20th – 22nd 2021

UNIVERSITAT DE GIRONA & MUSEU DEL CINEMA

The seminar Virtual worlds in early cinema: devices, aesthetics and audiences comes from an obvious desire for articulating a clear relationship among cinema’s past and contemporary audiovisual’s present. The nodal point of the project is the concept ofvirtual worlds. As Pierre Lévy states, we assist nowadays before a “general movement of virtualization has begun to affect not only the fields of information and communication but also our physical presence and economic activities, as well as the collective framework of sensibility and the exercise of intelligence. The process of virtualization has even affected our modalities of being together, the constitution of a collective “we” in the form of virtual communities, virtual corporations, virtual democracy…”.

September 23-25, 2021

The 12^th Annual (Virtual!) Conference for the Special Interest Group for Computing, Information, and Society, meetings.sigcis.org

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: DUE JUNE 1

SIGCIS 2021 is an open call for any and all work related to the history of computing and information systems, broadly imagined. The SIGCIS community is especially welcoming of new directions in research and creative production, and encompasses academic professionals, museum and archive professionals, IT practitioners, artists and creative technologists, and independent researchers across the disciplinary spectrum. We maintain an inclusive atmosphere for scholarly inquiry, promoting diversity in STEM and supporting disciplinary interventions from beyond traditional history of technology. We especially encourage submissions from those who have not previously attended but wish to learn more about our community.

Traditionally, SIGCIS holds its annual conference on the Sunday immediately following the annual conference for our parent organization, the Society for the History of Technology. While SHOT is going forward with an in-person meeting this fall, this year SIGCIS has elected to hold a virtual meeting earlier in the fall. We believe this choice will help ensure accessibility for our wide-ranging community, which includes many graduate students, early career scholars, precarious workers, and international scholars who may not be able to travel. Membership in SHOT is not required to submit to or attend SIGCIS.

SIGCIS has always invited both traditional scholarship and alternative forms of presentation and discussion. We encourage participants to think creatively about what forms of engagement, presentation, and scholarship will help us bridge the experience of the last year and what is to come. Presentation formats include, but aren’t limited to:

• Individual presentations of scholarly work
• Pre-constituted panels or roundtables of 3-4 scholars plus a moderator/respondent
• Virtual performances or exhibitions
• Skill-shares and tutorials
• Social activities
• Lightning talk sessions