CFP deadline extended to Wednesday 26 October 2022
eco_media IV: rip, rip, microchip
Monday 21 November 2022, RMIT University, Melbourne
The eco_media project will run its fourth annual symposium in 2022. The symposium’s steering panel invites proposals for papers that sit at the nexus of theory, philosophy, empirical research, and creative practice. The aim of the eco_media project is to understand how environmental issues, questions, and concerns are communicated through media forms, and to play at the borders of disciplines including media and environmental studies, philosophy, social science, and communication theory.
The second and third symposiums focused on how the two hyperobjects of climate catastrophe and COVID pandemic enmeshed and collided, and how we might approach these existential threats and changes to everyday life through theory and creative practice. The resulting edited collection, The Climate Catastrophe: A Creative and Critical Survival Guide, is currently under editorial review and will be published in early 2024.
In 2022, eco_media focuses on media technologies and extraction. In particular, how are media technologies and industries extracting and exploiting natural resources and the environment? There are bold and interesting new developments in the areas of machine learning, remote collaboration, and blockchain technology, for example. How are these evolving technologies intersecting with creativity and media industries, and beyond this, how are these industries working sustainably and eco-consciously with these new innovations?
Topics could include — but are not limited to:
- analyses/discussion of media representations of environmental issues/events
- documentary/creative interventions into climate discourse
- social media analysis/discussion of responses to climate issues/events
- machine learning, blockchain and the environment
- media technologies and creativity
- remote work/play/creativity/collaboration and the environment
- new media and environmental justice
- the intersection of discussion of Indigenous sovereignty alongside environmental issues
- climate, media and the 2020-? pandemic
- media education and the environment
- the meeting places between the natural and the mediated
- the impacts of media practice/research on the environment
- media materialism (which can incorporate elements of many of the above)
The symposium will run on-campus at RMIT University, Melbourne. Regional, interstate, and international presenters are — of course — welcome to attend in-person, but there will be a remote attendance/presentation option available.
Presentations can be completed papers, works-in-progress, screenings of creative practice research (draft or completed), performances, poster/discussion-style sessions, or something else entirely — up to a maximum of 20 minutes per presentation. A mixture of presentation styles and content is part of what has made eco_media successful in the past — so feel free to pitch us something new! Full panel proposals (x 3 presenters) are also welcome.
Presentations particularly aligned with this year’s theme may be invited to develop their work further for publication or distribution.
Please send a presentation title, abstracts of up to 350 words, a 100-word bio, plus any notes on type of presentation, to eco.media2.rmit@gmail.com by Wednesday 26 October 2022.
eco_media 