HASTAC is now soliciting papers and panel proposals for "Electronic Techtonics: Thinking at the Interface," the first international conference of HASTAC ("haystack": Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory). The interdisciplinary conference will be held April 19-21, 2007, in Durham, North Carolina, co-sponsored by Duke University in Durham and RENCI (Renaissance Computing Institute), an innovative technology consortium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Details concerning registration fees, hotel accommodations, and the full conference agenda will be posted to http://www.hastac.org/ as they become available.

Six sessions will be devoted to panels with refereed papers on aspects of "interface" spanning media arts, engineering, and the human, social, natural, and computational sciences. Panels will be topical and cross-disciplinary; they will be comprised of papers that are themselves interdisciplinary as well as specialized disciplinary papers presented in juxtaposition with one another. We will consider proposals for full panels (three or four papers), for paired cross-disciplinary papers on a shared topic, or for single papers.

Topics: Panels might address interfaces between humans and computers, mind and brain, real and virtual worlds, science and fiction, consumers and producers, text-archives and multi-media, youth and adults, disciplines, institutions, communities, identities, media, cultures, technologies, theories, and practices.

Other possible topics: the body as interface, neuroaesthetics and neurocognition, prosthetics, mind-controlled devices, immersion, emergence, presence, telepresence, sensor spaces, virtual reality, social networking, games, experimental learning environments, human/non-human situations and actors, interactive communication and control, access, borders, intellectual property, porosity, race and ethnicity, difference, Afro-Geeks and Afro-Futurism, identity, gender, sexuality, credibility, mapping and trafficking, civic engagement, social activism, cyberactivism, plus all of the other In|Formation Year topics: in|common, interplay, in|community, interaction, injustice, integration, invitation, innovation.

Proposal Submissions: Please send 500-1000 word paper and/or panel proposals to info@hastac.org. Deadline for Proposals: December 1, 2006.

Full-length papers or power-point presentations will be posted on the HASTAC website prior to the conference. The sessions themselves will be devoted to synopses of the work, followed by a response designed to elicit audience participation. Attendees whose papers are not accepted will be encouraged to display their work at a digital poster session.

About the Conference

The keynote address will be delivered at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke by visionary information scientist John Seely Brown (The Social Life of Information; formerly Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and Director of its Palo Alto Research Center/PARC). Other events include a talk by legal theorist James Boyle (co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Creative Commons, and Science Commons), a conversation among leaders of digital humanities projects led by John Unsworth (chair of the ACLS "Cyberinfrastructure and the Humanities and Social Sciences" commission), and a presentation by media artist and research pioneer Rebecca Allen. Also participating will be scholars from an array of domains significant to the information age, including Dan Connolly (co-inventor of HTML and Wired's "unsung hero of the internet"), Anna Everett (founding force behind AfroGeeks and race in digital space), Tim Lenoir (historian of the information age and new media innovator), Lev Manovich (multimedia artist and theorist), Connie Yowell (MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning initiative), and Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg (presenting "The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age").

The conference will include refereed scholarly and scientific papers, multimedia performances, an exhibit hall of innovative software and hardware, a demo of Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular, plus demonstrations of cutting-edge digital art and scientific installations in virtual reality, learning-game, and interactive 3D environments. The concluding session will be a two-hour conversation moderated by techno-humanist Anne Balsamo among leaders in the various domains that, together, will create Web 3.0., followed by tours of interactive spaces and experiments on the Duke campus, including some pioneered by faculty and students in the year-long "Interface" Seminar at Duke (http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/fhi/interface) led by VR engineer/designer Rachel Brady.

"Electronic Techtonics" will also include a reprise of the MiX TAPEStry sensor-space interactive hip hop party originally staged for "Katrina After the Storm," the first event of our In|Formation Year, and (at the Nasher) a mixed-media exhibit "Street Level," featuring the work of three urban-focused artists, Mark Bradford, William Cordova, and Robin Rhode. Multimedia performance artist Rene Garcia (VJ Cyops) will be remixing art and politics for a performance/dance party immediately following James Boyle's talk on open source.

Scholarship funding will be available to graduate students to help defray fees and conference costs.

HASTAC uses Creative Commons licenses for all of its endeavors. All conference sessions will be webcast, archived, and made available for non-profit educational purposes.