VIRTUAL FUTURES
DIGITAL NATIVES: FEAR OF THE FLESH
University of Warwick, UK, 18-19 June 2011
http://virtualfutures.co.uk/

“as art collapses into science, centralised control dissipates into networks, and culture migrates beyond man, the old models of explanation, classification and discussion are rendered obsolete.”
-Virtual Futures, 1996

15 years since the last event, the Virtual Futures Conference is set to return to the University of Warwick campus. The revival aims to reignite the debates over the implications of new and future communication technologies on art, society and politics. The conference will take place on the 18th-19th June 2011 and include paper presentations, panels, performances, screenings and installations.

We welcome researchers, scholars and artists to submit proposals for papers and/or performances around this year’s theme of: “Digital Natives: Fear of the Flesh?”

Contributions might deal with, but are by no means limited to, the following subjects and trajectories:

• Humanism, posthumanism and transhumanism
• Technology and the human
• Bio-Ethics
• Bio-Hacking
• Neuro-Psychology
• Future Cities
• Living Technology
• Cyberculture
• Hacking
• Deleuze and Guattari
• Impacts of Emerging Technologies
• Digital Death
• Public Engagement with Science
• Sustainability
• Life Extension
• Virtual Reality/ Augmented Reality
• Gaming
• Web Security

Please send proposals (250 words max) to [email protected] by 01/05/2011

Participants may have an opportunity to publish versions of their papers in a Journal publication designed specifically for the conference.

More details are available here:
http://virtualfutures.co.uk/vf2011/submissions/

In the mid-90′s Virtual Futures saw the coming together of some truly unique performers, practitioners and academics including Stelarc, Orlan, Hakim Bey and Manuel De Landa. This is a chance to be part of an academic conference with a rare history and sub-culture.

We are also keen to speak to anyone who may have had a past connection with either the Virtual Futures conference or with the work of the Cybernetic Cultures Research Unit. The revival will form part of a wider research project – with the conference serving as an international platform from which the outcomes of VF 94/95/96 will be contextualised. It will be an essential follow up and review of the very important cutting edge work that the speakers at the original event pioneered. Please contact [email protected] if you have any information.

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