Fwd: Biocode: Performing Transgression After New Media | April 9-11, 2015

[Kevin Gotkin]

Hi Hacktory folks!

See below for a note about a conference we’re planning at Penn in April 2015. We would love to have some people from the Hacktory advise us as we go, in whatever capacity you can offer!

--

Kevin Gotkin

Ph.D. Student

Annenberg School for Communication

University of Pennsylvania

Tel: (551)427-7907

Begin forwarded message:

From: Kevin Gotkin <kgo...@asc.upenn.edu>

Subject: Biocode: Performing Transgression After New Media | April 9-11, 2015

Date: August 28, 2014 at 7:14:40 PM EDT

To: #-Lists-Students_All <studen...@asc.upenn.edu>

Cc: Don James McLaughlin <donjamesm...@gmail.com>, Jazmin Delgado <jazmin....@gmail.com>

Hi all—

Last spring, a group of graduate students from English, Annenberg, Education, and Political Science started meeting to plan a conference around biopolitics, digital media, and transgression. We are happy to announce that we have secured funding from the Provost Interdisciplinary Seminar Fund and a great variety of departmental sources, which will allow us to make this a big-tent, international conference. We wanted to send a bit of information about the conference so that any new students might want to join us as we continue to organize throughout the fall semester.

The conference is called “Biocode: Performing Transgression After New Media” and will take place April 9-11, 2015 (Thursday through Saturday). We borrow “biocode” from philosopher Beatriz Preciado, who uses the term to describe the new unit of biopower under what she calls the “pharmacopornographic regime.” In addition to calling up ideas about the intersection of computation with life forces, the term has been recently used by natural scientists to name a new taxonomic nomenclature of all living things. Drawing inspiration from these legacies, Biocode aims to bring a variety of artists, activists, and theorists together working on tactics of resistance, disturbance, and transgression in response to modes of surveillance and state control after the digital turn. The event will consider different possibilities of transgression through a variety of critical frames and will facilitate dialogue between work situated in the fields of disability studies, queer and trans* studies, border studies, and critical race theory.

In the coming weeks we will extend invitations to Kara Keeling, Wendy Chun, Sara Hendren, Zach Blas, Ricardo Dominguez, and Beatriz Preciado. We will continue to send invitations over the next month to others. We imagine a capacious and unique conference format, including performances, film screenings, and open studio time in addition to traditional academic presentations.

We would love for more voices to join us as we crystallize our vision for the conference. If you would like to join the planning committee for Biocode, please reply to this email to express interest and we will add you to our conference admin listserv to keep you up to date on our next meetings (like the one we’re having this Sunday!).

If you know of others who would be interested in joining us, please spread the word!

—The Biocode Planning Committee