BIOS: The Poetics of Life in Digital Media

This from Randall Szott of placekraft and LeisureArts via Peter Ciccariello
and the Writing & the Digital Life blog:

Announcing BIOS: The Poetics of Life in Digital Media, hosted by the Center for Literary Computing at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV. September 14-16, 2006.

BIOS: The Poetics of Life in Digital Media is an interdisciplinary symposium on the re-invention of life in digital media. The term BIOS captures capture boundary-crossing and hybridization of human and machine. For the ancient Greeks, BIOS referred to particular forms of life rather than life in general (zoe). BIOS therefore, was the form of life specific to the development of human society and political culture.
Understanding BIOS means understanding how humans adapt nature into culture. In computer science, by contrast, BIOS means something quite different: the basic input output system, the lowest level of code that allows a computer to run. BIOS is burnt into computer hardware and enables the machine to boot and run software programs and media. The two meanings of BIOS resonate with each other as basic requirements for a social system, whether in civic space or in cyberspace.

DAC/BLOG Nears, Surpasses Ten Thousandth Hit

Congratulations to c-24-15-231-167.hsd1.il.comcast.net from the United States who on Monday May 22 at 18:05:48 (6:05 pm) CST 2006 saw the counter on the DAC/BLOG go from four figures to five figures. That's a one with four zeros after it.

Anticipation is growing as the Digital Arts and Culture Blog approaches its ten thousandth (10,000th) hit. The filter style blog which posts events, calls for entries and proposals, courses, and media curiosities was inaugurated on February 24, 2004 by this blogger and program coordinator, Marc Tasman. This is the blog's ninety-ninth (99th) post coincidentally, and by analyzing past tracking results, I expect that the counter will add a digit and roll over next Friday, May 26th, 2006.
However, DAC/BLOG's participation in the popular_project (a del.icio.us and technorati tag, see also PopularProject) may accelerate the hit total. Suspenseful, isn't it?

Google's "Summer of Code"

From Sandra Braman:

It's too late for this year, but this is an annual opportunity for students (who earn $5K if they're chosen to participate) who are interested in further developing their open source skills and want to contribute to open source projects.

The Console-ing Passions International Conference on Television, Audio, Video, New Media and Feminism

from Elana Levine

The Console-ing Passions International Conference on Television, Audio, Video, New Media and Feminism will be held in Milwaukee May 25 – 27, 2006. For program and registration information, please visit our website. Please direct questions to cptv[at]uwm[dot]edu. Hope to see many of you there!

ONE HOUR VIDEO

Wednesday May 17th from 8:00-9:00 pm
ACL 120
________________

Students from Mat Rappaport's Video and Audio Strategies course will
be presenting their short video works. The videos ask important
questions such as " what is an art video anyway?, "why don't men
pluck their beards?", "What does a years worth of butter consumption
look like anyhow?" and "will the world end by media death or nuclear
catastrophe?". Hmm. I want to know, don't you?

So, please join us and feel great.

History and Change, International Digital Media Call for Papers

Thanks, Jeff Smith:
History and Change, International Digital Media Arts Association

Call for Papers Deadline: 2006-08-01

The Journal of the International Digital Media and Arts Association is currently seeking submissions for a special themed issue on History and Changing Paradigms: the Role of Digital Media and Arts in How We View our World. The Journal of The International Digital Media and Arts Association is a quarterly seeking to respond to the rapidly developing field of digital media and arts in a variety of settings-academic, educational, artistic, political, and social. The editorial board
invites original submissions that consider the development, application, and understanding of digital media and arts; the purpose of the journal is promote awareness of this growing field and to prompt discussion about the issues that are a part of our increasingly digital world. In this special issue, we seek work that considers how digital media and arts have been contributing to changes in the ways that people see their world, both literally and conceptually, with a particular emphasis on the "idea" of History.

PLEASE CONTACT SHARON ROSS FOR FULL CALL GUIDELINES AS TO LENGTH, FORMAT.

Sharon Ross
Columbia College Chicago
sross[at]colum[dot]edu

JMC courses for DAC credit

Consider these Fall 2006 courses for DAC practicum credit:

JMC 280(LEC-001): Introduction to Digital Video for Documentary

Instructor: Tess Gallun

Course Description:

This course is for students interested in learning how to create long-format, non-fiction narratives through the use of digital video. Terms and techniques appropriate for working in visual media will be introduced as well as distinct shooting styles and editing approaches for developing a concise documentary-style story. Coursework will encompass learning how to shoot and edit video packages intended for television documentaries, educational videos, and investigative journalism stories. This course will provide practical hands-on training with professional field equipment and non-linear editing software to begin to prepare students for a successful career creating digital video narratives.

JMC 660 Advanced Documentary Journalism (Prereq: jr st.)

Instructor: Alison Rostankowski

Course Description:

This course is for students interested in learning how to produce a broadcast quality documentary fit for television or film festival entry. Student documentaries produced in this class have aired on Milwaukee Public television, screened at the Board of Regents Meeting and won the top prize at the Detroit Documentary Film Festival. This course focuses on how to research, produce, direct and write non-fiction narratives. The course instructor will guide you through the creative process, help shape your idea into a narrative, and introduce you to the many skills that a professional storyteller needs to master out in the “real world.” You will learn how to pitch an idea for a show, how to interview subjects, and discover important techniques for writing an engaging script. Students will also be introduced to in-depth hostorical research techniques, and licensing music and archival footage.

Conference on Openness

From Sandra Braman:
This conference is coming up in Chicago -- it's free to students (just register as a helper), near-by, and has some pretty amazing people attending even if I am too.

http://numenor.lib.uic.edu/fmconference/

Sandra

Held at
University of Illinois at Chicago
Behavioral Sciences Building, Room 250
1007 W. Harrison
Chicago, Illinois, USA
60607-7140

May 15 - 17, 2006
FM10 Openness: Code, Science and Content is convened by the volunteer-run journal First Monday (http://www.firstmonday.org), the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) University Library and the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) located at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, and now a United Nations University Research and Training Centre. The UIC Library has provided a home for First Monday, including its Web server, since 1998, and provides the venue, logistical and content support for this conference. MERIT hosted the first First Monday conference in Maastricht, November 2001, and provides support for the content of this conference.