[Athena] Reminder: 2009 CITA CONFERENCE: L. FORTUNATI, L. GIES, A. LASEN, 9/6/2009 and BOOK SALE

[Sandra Mols <smo AT info.fundp.ac.be>]

Avec toutes nos excuses pour les doublons. Apologies for crossposting.

Cher.e collègue, dear colleague

Vous trouverez ci-bas un rappel de l'annonce de la dernière séance des Conférences CITA 2009 Corps et Technologies. Cette séance - "Quelle corporéité pour les intrications technologiques?" - aura lieu le mardi 9/6/2009 prochain à partir de 16h30. Les conférenciers seront Leopoldina Fortunati (Université d'Udine), Lieve Gies (Keele University) et Amparo Lasén (Universidad Complutense, Madrid). Un descriptif détaillé de cette séance, qui se fera en français et en anglais, se trouve aux adresses suivantes: http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/~smo/CITACONFERENCES/CITABodyConf5_Leaflet.pdf (French version), http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/%7Esmo/CITACONFERENCES/CITABodyConf5_EnglLeaflet.pdf  (English version) 

Cette séance sera suivie d'une réception et d'une table et vente de livres dédiés à la corporéité technologisée  en collaboration avec la Librairie Point Virgule.

Le comité organisateur

Claire Lobet-Maris (CITA-FUNDP), Nathalie Grandjean (CITA-FUNDP), Sandra Mols (CITA-FUNDP), Céline Decleire (CITA-FUNDP), Yves Poullet (CRID-FUNDP), Annabelle Klein (GRICI-FUNDP), Gérard Derèze (COMU-UCL), Marc Lits (COMU-UCL), Sarah Sepulchre (COMU-UCL)

 

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2009 CITA Conferences - Body and Technology - Closing Conference: Towards Technologically-Weaved Bodies?

 

Speakers : Leopoldina Fortunati (University of Udine, Italy), Lieve Gies (Keele University, UK), Amparo Lasén (Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain)

Time and place : Tuesday 9th of June 2009, 16H30, Faculté d'Informatique, FUNDP, 21 rue Grandgagnage, 4th floor, Salle Alan Turing, Namur (Belgium)

Information and registration (free): citaconferences AT gmail.com

The focus in this conference is with the usages, impacts and issues raised, as regards to corporeity, by the emergence and spread of interfaces, e.g. from a standpoint focused on ergonomics, of virtuality. As regards to virtuality, a classic example is that of the debates on the cultural weight of internet and virtual communities. Such debates highlight the rising possibilities towards, and risks of, the de-incarnation of subjectivity due to the popularisation of communication practices through virtual platforms, e-mails but also more critically sites as Facebook. Rumour has it that virtual spaces allow the deployment of selves beyond corporeity, as these allow the imagining of disconnected identities. Yet, are virtual lives separated from corporeally-embodied lives? 
Indeed, corpses, that is, bodies in the biological meaning of the word, are often assumed as the material un-connected background of virtual practices. Alongside Van Dijck’s work on the Visible Human Project, we would like to re-open the discussion on physical corporeity in its relationships to virtual practices. What about virtual realities as spaces for alternative forms of sexuality? More mundanely, what about webcams? Is virtuality leading out towards the emergence of a new, distinct, virtually-embodied subjectivity? What are the relations between virtually-embodied individuality and biological corporeity? Are these separated, or interacting, inter-penetrating?
The conference will also allow discussing the issues raised by the taking into account of bodily issues – ergonomics, comfort issues – while at the technical design of technological artefacts, for instance computers, keyboards, screens, mp3 reader, iPod, and mobile phones. Such taking into account has corporeal impacts. It pre-sets the terms for later usages and the appropriating relationships between users’ bodies of users and technological artefacts. This is not new. In the 1950s, already, the bugs of early computers were tracked down through corporeal strategies. Users would experiment connecting loud-speakers to circuitry to identify computer bugs. Such corporeal computer control strategies are not by-gone. We quite appreciate sound alarms for incoming e-mails. More vainly, embodied subjectivity issues shape technology design beyond basic ergonomics. PDA and mobile phone designs reflect ergonomic considerations – the modelling of fingers’ size – as well as other vaguer cultural criteria, such as the gender of targeted buyers. What does it mean for a contemporary conception of technology and corporeity that mobile phones come in backpocket-friendly shape, or gender-fit colours?

Contributions to this conference will be in French and in English, and include:
"ICTs and the Human Body: A Social Representation Discourse," by Leopoldina Fortunati, Universitá de Udine, Italy
"Capturing Bare Life: Embodiment, the Biopolitical and New ICTs," by Lieve Gies, Keele University, UK
"La participation des technologies dans le devenir des corps: un exemple de matérialisme dionysiaque," by Amparo Lásen, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain

The conference will be followed by a drink reception and by a book sale dedicated to body, embodiment and technology issues, organised in cooperation with the Librairie Point Virgule.

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The Seminar Series in Brief: On Corpses, Embodiment and Contemporary Technology. Which Modes of Subjectivity under Contemporary Technologisation?

This seminar series explores the issues raised by the contemporary, growing, technologisation of bodily experience. Technologisation has significantly reconfigured modes of human bodily experience and subjective individuality. Contemporary bodies, while using technologies such as electronic prostheses, become trailed into technologised symbioses all more pervasive and intimate. This transformation fascinates as well as repulses, for it renders bodies monstrous and extra-ordinary in the same time. This seminar series aims at exploring the very roles and impacts of technologisation upon bodily experience, with a central analytical focus on the various modes and ways of experiencing technologised bodies. This variety will be encapsulated through talks originating from various fields, e.g. sociology, philosophy, history, semiotics, and technology assessment. All conferences are free of charge.

 

Organisation: Cellule Interdisciplinaire de Technology Assessment (CITA) (FUNDP, Namur, Belgique), Centre de Recherche Informatique et Droit (CRID) (FUNDP), Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire en communication & internet (GRICI) (FUNDP), Département de communication (COMU) (Université Catholique de Louvain).

Plan: http://www.fundp.ac.be/universite/acces/plan2.html

Web: http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/confcita09/index.html

Programme: http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/~smo/CITACONFERENCES/CITAEmbodimentTechnology_FINALProgram.pdf

Theme: http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/~smo/CITACONFERENCES/CITAConferenceOnline.pdf  

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Cellule Interdisciplinaire de Technology Assessment (CITA)
Faculté d'Informatique
Université de Namur
Rue Grandgagnage, 21
B 5000 NAMUR
Belgium
FAX 32+ 81 72 49 67
http://www.fundp.ac.be/facultes/info/recherche/cita/