As algorithmic data processing increasingly pervades everyday life, it is also making its way into the worlds of art, literature and music. In doing so, it shifts notions of creativity and evokes non-anthropocentric perspectives on artistic practice. Negotiating the aesthetic, cultural, and social implications of this development is an ongoing process to which this bilingual (German and English) and transdisciplinary final conference within the project From Avant-garde to Algorithm: Automated Creativity in Music and Literature aims to make its contribution.
Papers primarily from the fields of cultural studies, literary studies, musicology and sound studies as well as media studies, linguistics, philosophy of technology, sociology of technology, gender studies and beyond are welcome. The conference is also meant to be open to forms of aesthetic and performative knowledge production such as lecture performances, installations and artistic research projects. Contributions may consider, but are not limited to, the following topics and questions.
The materiality of the digital
Technology between commodification, discrimination, and participation
AI as a cultural or creative paradigm
Metaphors of technology and the digital
(‘cloud’; ‘deep learning’; ‘artificial intelligence’)
Algorithms, AI and digital media in public
discourse on creativity and art
Reproduction of categories of difference in
(the use of) technology
‘Creative’ machines and authorship
The ‘dissolution of the author’ in creative networks
Can algorithms be creative?
The programmer as author
The user as author
Postdigital aesthetics of production
Towards an AI aesthetics?
Coding as art?
Code as artwork
AI in literature and music
Text-generators and ‘non-literature’
Poetic automatons and algorithms
Art as an embodied phenomenon
Making art using ‘deep learning’ tools
Data, simulation and predictions - convergence
of scientific and creative practice?
Creativity and in socio-technological networks
Creative human-machine interaction
Submissions will be accepted until May 31st 2022 via this form. Acceptance of papers is subject to the discretion of the organising committee, confirmations will be given in early July 2022. Individual papers and presentations should be about 20 minutes in length and can be held in either German or English. For submissions beyond the usual conference paper, the time frame may adapt to the project.
Abstracts for individual papers and presentations are limited to 300 words and should be accompanied by short biographies of no more than 100 words. We also invite proposals for panels of 90 minutes. Such proposals should not exceed 500 words and be accompanied by a short bio of no more than 100 words for the lead/corresponding author.
Please also indicate whether or not you would consider attending in person, if circumstances permit. Depending on response and number of accepted papers, parallel panels in German and English will be considered. All papers will be considered for publication.