[Air-L] Call for entries: Vilém Flusser Theory Award

[Findeisen Andreas Leo]

Dear Colleague, 

as this is my first submission to the list, I would
kindly ask you to have a look if all is ok.

Thank you, from Vienna, Austria, 

Sincerely,

Leo Findeisen

---



Dear Colleagues,

Please find below a call for entries for the next edition of 
the Vilém Flusser Theory Award in Berlin, which has a deadline
on 5th of September, 2008. We look forward to your submissions. 
My apologies for cross-posting.




Call for Entries: Vilém Flusser Theory Award

LINK: 
http://www.transmediale.de/site/en/call/vilem-flusser-theory-award/

In order to reflect the increasing significance of theoretical and critical practice works submitted for the transmediale Award competition, the festival has introduced the Vilém Flusser Theory Award. ?In collaboration with the recently opened _Vilém_Flusser_Archive at the Universität der Künste Berlin, dedicated to the complete works of the influential visionary and media philosopher, the award honors outstanding theoretical or research based digital arts practice. Endowed with a cash prize of 2,000 euros the possibility of an additional residency component is currently being explored.

The Vilém Flusser Theory Award seeks to encourage critical and cross-disciplinary research and profound speculative investigation towards the development of new forms of digital culture, art and society. For those with backgrounds straddling the boundaries of theory and practice, for example within the realms of digital media philosophy and aesthetics, technology and digital ecology, or the social impact of networks and software the Award presents an opportunity to enhance debate and discourse beyond the usual confines of digital and media art practice.

Vilém Flusser was a unique thinker whose philosophical poetics appeal to people from many distinct professional and cultural backgrounds, to those daring to explore fundamentally distinct routes and modes of understanding, of making and of acting differently in an intrinsically interconnected and complex world. As a philosopher, Vilém Flusser devoted himself to constructing a space for a radical diversity of cultural dimensions welcoming thought on digital aesthetics, network cultures, art and technology. He saw socio-political 'events' as being process oriented experiences, as non-hierarchical platforms of communication upon which researchers, developers and artists could come together to collaboratively explore the previously uncharted aesthetic and communicative possibilities of new media technologies.

Framing the spirit and sense of purpose embodied by Vilém Flusser's work transmediale seeks submissions in the form of written texts, articles, manuscripts, dissertations, experimental formats and speculative practice-based endeavours. Works that engage a digital sense of 'materiality' with high and unique levels of abstraction, critically unfolding the conceptuality of network structures, aesthetics, politics, and society are welcome. Entrants should be individuals, coherent groups or collectives working on unique projects or following a common trajectory of practice. Works may be submitted in hard or digital copy formats in any language, however works not in English must be accompanied by an English language abstract, version or text list.

In its introductory year in 2008 the transmediale jury awarded a first prize valued at 1,000 EUR to Simon Yuill for his text "All problems of notation will be solved by the masses: Free Open Form Performance, Free/Libre Open Source Software, and Distributive Practice" (2008), and two honorable mentions, of 500 EUR each, to Bureau d'Etudes for the "End of Secrecy" (2008) and to Naeem Mohaiemen for his text "Fear of a Muslim Planet: Hip-Hop’s Hidden History" (2008).

The transmediale.09 Vilém Flusser Theory Award committee are:

Olga Goriunova (Moscow), Andreas Leo Findeisen (Vienna), Marcel René Marburger (Cologne/Berlin)

:: Deadline: 5 September 2008
:: Award Ceremony: 31 January 2009