<nettime> The California Ideology Redux

[Bruce Sterling <bruces@well.com>]

(((Hello kein.org -- bruces)))

From: Julian Bleecker (julian@techkwondo.com)
Subject: Convergence: Special Issue on Digital Cultures of California
Date: July 13, 2007 10:58:54 AM PDT


Colleagues and Friends,

I am editing an upcoming special issue of Convergence: The 
International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. If you 
would, please consider contributing. Inquiries or questions can be 
directed to me.

We are particularly interested in articles that have a practice-based 
approach to their topic, or are explications of digital culture as 
seen through new kinds of interaction rituals brought to us courtesy 
of California's peculiar ways of making and circulating culture.

Thanks. Hope to hear from you.

Julian Bleecker


Julian Bleecker, Ph.D.
http://research.techkwondo.com
julian@techkwondo.com

=================================================
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media 
Technologies


Call for Papers -- Special Issue on 'Digital Cultures of California
Vol 15 no 1. February 2009


Guest editor:
Julian Bleecker (julian [at] techkwondo [dot] com and bleeckerj [at] gmail
[dot] com) (Near Future Laboratory and University of Southern California)

The deadline for submission of research articles is 1 February 2008.

This call invites submissions for a special issue related to digital cultures
of California. Internationally, California is a phenomenon in terms of its
relationship to creating, consuming and analyzing the era of digital
technologies. From the legendary garage entrepreneurs, to the multi-billion
dollar culture of venture capital, to stock back- dating scandals, to the epic
exodus of California's IT support staff during the Burning Man festival, this
territory plays an important role in the political, cultural and economic
underpinnings of digitally and network-mediated lives on a global scale.

The Bay Area of California (often referred to somewhat incorrectly as Northern
California) is perceived as a hot-bed of technology activity. Nearby Silicon
Valley serves as a marker for the massive funding of enterprises that shape
many aspects of digital culture. The new interaction rituals that have come to
define what social life has become in many parts of the world can often be
traced back to this part of California. New, popular and curious forms of
presence awareness and digital communication such as Twitter and Flickr have
found a comfortable home here. Lifestyles of the Northern California digerati
have enveloped the cultural milieu, often changing the social landscape to
such a degree that it become unrecognizable and unpalatable to those less
engaged in creating and consuming digital cultures. Complimenting the Bay
Area's technology production activities is Southern California -- the greater
Los Angeles basin in particular -- where Hollywood sensibilities bring
together entertainment with technology through such things as video games,
mobile content distribution, digital video and 3D cinema.

California is also the home of several colleges and universities where digital
technologies are developed in engineering departments and reflected upon from
social science and humanities departments.  This curious relationship between
production and analysis creates the promise of insightful interdisciplinary
approaches to making new kinds of digital networked cultures. Many institutions
have made efforts to combine engineering and social science practices to
bolster technology design. Xerox PARC probably stands as the canonical example
of interdisciplinary approaches to digital technology design. Similarly,
combining arts practices with technology as a kind of exploratory research and
development has important precedent at places like Intel Berkeley Labs and PARC
and at the practice-based events such as the San Jose California-based Zero One
festival.

In this special issue we welcome submissions which investigate, provoke and
explicate the California digital cultures from a variety of perspectives. We
are interested in papers that approach this phenomenon in scholarly and,
particularly, approaches that emphasize practice-based analysis and knowledge
production.

* What are the ways that social networks have been shaped by digital
techniques?

* How has the phenomenon of the digital entrepreneur evolved in the age of DIY
sensibilities?

* What are the ways that 'new ideas' succeed or fail based on their
dissemination amongst the elite, connected digerati, as opposed to their
dissemination amongst less more quotidian communities?

* What is the nature of the matrix of relationships between Hollywood
entertainment, the military, industry and digital technology?

* Can the DIY culture explored in the pages of Make magazine produce its own
markets?

* How does the Apple Inc. culture of product design and development shape and
inform popular culture?

* How have the various interdisciplinary approaches undertaken at corporate
research centers connected to universities such as Intel Berkeley Labs shaped
digital cultures?

* What does 'Silicon Valley' mean in other geographies? How has the model of
associations between innovation, research and funding been transplanted
elsewhere and to what measures of success?

The deadline for submission of research articles is 1 February 2008.

Submissions/proposals for papers should be directed to the guest editor. The
special issue will be published (by SAGE) in February 2009. For full details of
house style and submission format, please consult www.beds.ac.uk/Convergence

(For all other submissions/inquiries, please contact convergence@beds.ac.uk)

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