** Worldwide Call for Submissions **
Please feel free to spread the word widely

The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (http://lea.mit.edu) is currently
seeking submissions for its upcoming Special Issues - Please see
individual calls for details.

1) Network Leaps, Bounds and Misses: Critiquing Regional
Strategies for Digital Arts and Electronic Music
in Asia and the Pacific - DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 15 APRIL

2) From the Extraordinary to the Uncanny:
the persistence of a parallel universe

3) RE:SEARCHING OUR ORIGINS: Critical and Archival
Histories of the Electronic Arts

_____________________________

Network Leaps, Bounds and Misses: Critiquing Regional
Strategies for Digital Arts and Electronic Music
in Asia and the Pacific
Guest Editor: Fatima Lasay <fats@up.edu.ph>

Under the UNESCO Digi-Arts Knowledge Portal for technology-
based arts and music, an international colloquium took place on
4-5 December, 2003 at the Sarai Center for Study of Developing
Societies in Delhi, India. The meeting, entitled "Old
pathways/New travelers: new media, electronic music and digital
art practices in the Asia Pacific region", sought to launch a
media arts and electronic music initiative sponsored by UNESCO
Digi-Arts and Sarai, to promote and develop research,
networking, mutual cooperation, training and knowledge in these
fields within the region. The meeting also aimed to point out
the role and place of media and technology in a social, cultural
and economic landscape inscribed by ancient histories of contact
and paths that internally connect the landmass of Asia and the
island cultures of the Pacific regions, its impact on young
people and its potential as a unique tool to promote cultural
diversity.

As critical and engaging discussions of such a network of
associations are underway, what do our past and current national
and regional practices reveal about the limits of localization,
proximity and regional reification? What lies beneath or within
concepts of media and technology as instruments for promoting
cultural diversity? Is media and technology a result or cause of
culture? What is the position of media, art and technology in
the ontological divide between regionalization and
globalization? In which aspects do we need to transcend the
regional level in the regional network building efforts? What is
the significance of local ontologies within the process of
building a regional network?

Can asymmetrical local and regional development and promotion
of digital arts in the region be addressed by mere institutional
and conventional proximity? If geographic proximity is
insuficient, then which conceptual spaces might provide a more
solid basis for cooperative development? What critical and
realistic approaches have been and can be made, in both
imagination and actualization, to move in opposite directions
and still meet together, across the globe, in building that
strong and balanced support structure for digital arts in the
region?

For the June issue of LEA, we invite contributions from
artists, musicians, practitioners, curators and critics that
address regional networking competence problems and realities in
the field of digital arts and electronic music in the Asia
Pacific cultures.

LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers
/ students to submit their proposals for consideration. We
particularly encourage authors outside North America and Europe
to send proposals for articles/gallery/artists statements.

Proposals should include:
- 300 word abstract / synopsis
- A brief author biography
- Any related URLs
- Contact details

Deadline for proposals: Extended to 15 April 2004

Please send proposals or queries to:
Fatima Lasay
fats@up.edu.ph

or
Nisar Keshvani
LEA Editor-in-Chief
lea@mitpress.mit.edu

_____________________________


>From the Extraordinary to the Uncanny:
the persistence of a parallel universe
Guest Editor: Michael Punt
< extraordinaryconnections@uk2.net >

We are seeking submissions of papers and other works from
artists historians, and theorists interested in this topic. In
particular we are calling for short papers (