Via: Geert Lovink

I4: Interactivity / Information / Interfaces / Immersion
International Research Conference
J W Goethe University
Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology
Organized by the Research Network for Media Anthropology / FAME
Frankfurt
October 24-��26, 2007

The I4 International Conference addresses the emergence of complex collaboration and community software. We assume that all human sensory and mental capabilities and the ability to abstract, conceive and implement things are, and have been, involved in the development of human ability to use media.
The concept of media encompasses perception, abstraction, storage, rules for the retention of information � of texts and holytexts, the great sagas, manifestations of cultural memory � and progression beyond existing knowledge paradigms. It is impossible to determine how perception and interaction will impact on media, either qualitatively or quantitatively.
The conference will be devoted to questions surrounding digital environments and the technology-based generation of cultural patterns in four areas: Interactivity / Information / Interfaces / Immersion

We invite submissions which explore these issues and offer answers to
such questions as:

What connections can we currently identify between software development and cultural evolution? What significance can be attached to co-evolutionary processes in perception, abstraction, forms of virtualization, digital technologies and communication capabilities? What kinds of virtual spaces are developing? How are digital communication spaces influencing urbanization processes and the architecture of buildings? What significance does game software have in creating new social and cultural contexts? What kinds of cooperative and collaborative processes are developing? What are the defining properties of an explicit model of social constructs in a technology-based media environment? How are means of digital communication influencing children'��s and adults� living spaces and interior architecture? How can a transition from the idiocy of the masses and the knowledge of the crowd into a knowledge-generating virtual community be explained? Can we see signs of an emerging virtual civilization? How will network-integrated community building be important in the future? How are learning and the structure and legitimation of knowledge changing?
Please submit ideas for topics and papers (500 words max.) by March 31, 2007

Initiators and contacts:

Prof. Manfred Fa��ler
FAME � Frankfurt/ Research Network for Media Anthropology
Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology
J W. Goethe University
fasslermanfred@aol.com

Dr. Mark Mattingley-Scott
Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology
J W. Goethe University
scott@de.ibm.com