Call for Delegates,

36MC - 36 hours in a mystery chair

36 hour event (00.00 hours 29th March - 12.00 30th March)

Manchester, England

The event:

36 artists, thinkers and activists have been working in the abandoned
Blackwells bookshop on Oxford Road, Manchester for several weeks. Their
efforts will culminate in a 36 hour lock-in over the dates above, in
which they will focus their creative efforts on the theme of
confinement. Some will be literally confined to the building for this
period, others will interrogate the process from without via a range of
media - from cb radio to feeding electronic information into the heavily
networked building. You are formally invited to participate in this
process.

As well as the generation of a number of artworks and incidents, the
process hopes to leave a considered legacy of recorded debate and
discussion around the theme of confinement. To allow for this we are
inviting 'speakers' to contribute papers for discussion at a parallel 36
hour seminar hosted by the occupants of the building and run via their
web site . The format of the seminar will take the basis of twelve key
note deliveries being posted up in turn at three hour intervals,
punctuated hourly by two written responses to these papers. This will be
complimented by the ongoing reaction from the occupants of the building
and visitors to the web site. The keynote speaker would be asked to
retain a physical or virtual presence throughout the three hour span in
which their contribution is the focus.

There is a potentially fascinating breadth of discussion to be had in
relation to confinement, especially given some of the utopian promises
of freedom that have accompanied the digital age and the accompanying
issues of political, social and economic limits and the way these
structures articulate themselves. Consequently we are approaching a
broad range of people across a number of disciplines both to frame the
event and the subsequent documentation of it. The hope is to allow this
short period between announcement and realisation of the seminar to both
impose a structure of existing thought on confinement onto 36MC and to
allow for 'hothousing' the contributions within just such a context of
confinement of both time and space.

In terms of practicalities, variations on existing work are welcomed,
especially given the time scale and the nature of the ongoing debate.
Contributors will be largely able to determine the appropriate format
for the material they wish to deliver and the event can support IRC,
MOO, web chat, mailing lists, CUSeeMe etc (hopefully linked by a single
interface). The event is being facilitated by IDEA as part of their
ongoing programme of supporting creative electronic work within the
Manchester community.(http://www.36MC-IDEA.org.uk)

36MC will be documented initially on a permanently maintained web site.
Any subsequent income-generating publications such as cd-roms etc would
be released via an appropriate process of consulatation with the
individual speakers to deal with fair allocation of fees and a veto on
distribution of material.

We very much hope that you can find the time to contribute to this
event.