RMeS Winter School & Graduate Symposium 2022-23
Glitch / blur / transgression
When: 26 & 27 January 2023
Time: TBA
Where: Tilburg University
ECTS: 2 (two full days plus preparation 3 days)
Organized by: Dr Julian Hanna, Dr Inge van de Ven, Lucie Chateau, Dr Nathan Wildman and RMeS
Open to: PhD candidates who are a member of RMeS
Registration | Register before December 15, 2022
This year’s RMeS Winter School (26-27 January 2023) will be organised by Tilburg University.
For the latest edition of the winter school we invite researchers to explore, analyse, and (above all) celebrate the frayed edges of digital media culture – glitches, blurred boundaries, major or minor transgressions – and the creative potential of these ostensibly neglected or problematic areas that lie outside the mainstream. How can these “trouble spots” be useful in conceptual, theoretical, or methodological terms? How do they reveal fundamental contradictions about our digital culture? How do they queer our virtual lives? Can we build something from their malfunction?
The glitch is an interruption of our daily digital lives. When a part of the technology breaks down and manifests as a glitch, it changes the way we read, interpret, and interact online. Glitches are an aesthetic of failure. When we are interpellated by failure, as Michael Betancourt points out, the “aura of the digital” is dispelled. What should be a prescribed course of action is stopped, and we are faced with a blank screen (buffering anxiety). Glitches blur our idealised encounters with the digital. They therefore question what we expect from the digital, and how what is supposedly immaterial can reveal its material basis.
Artists, activists, and scholars have long embraced the revolutionary and critical potential of the “glitch” (Menkman), the “poor image” (Steyerl), the “accident” (Virilio), the “non-place” (Augé), the “punctum” (Barthes), the “hauntological” (Fisher), the “trouble” (Haraway), contagion, decoherence, dissonance, negation, and so on. How can we push this even further, to open the cracks that exist in everything (because “that’s where the light gets in”)? Can we intrepret the glitch as a call to arms Legacy Russell in Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto?
Inspired by these glitches, blurrings, and transgressions, we look forward to two days of groundbreaking discussion on themes related to digital culture, including (but not limited to):
- Porous boundaries
- Fluid identities
- Failure
- Anxiety
- Glitching algorithms/machines
- Technological disobedience
- Remixing from within
- As form of (in)visibility
- As political strategy
- Encounters between the material and immaterial
The programme will feature a keynote lecture by Rosa Menkman, a discussion group, and a workshop on research valorisation and fundraising schemes by THRIVE Institute. While we hope that participants will find connections and engage in discussions related to glitching, blurring, and transgression, presentations do not need to speak directly (or even indirectly) to the theme of the winter school – all are welcome.
Practicalities
This Winter School will feature different types of sessions: 1) parallel sessions for presenting your work to peers 2) lectures by RMeS staff members and 3) a workshop on Research Valorisation and Fundraising Schemes.
- PhD’s are kindly asked to submit an abstract of their paper presentation. This may regard a chapter of your dissertation, a draft for an article, or a write-up of research results, which you would like to discuss with your peers. We will group your abstracts into panels, selecting panels on the basis of your theme/subject, approach and your level of advancement in the PhD track. If you want to be in a session with one or two of your peers (people whose judgment you value, or people you haven’t worked with yet) please feel free to indicate this on your abstract. We will then try to organize panels on the basis of your proposals. You will be assigned to peer-review one paper and to chair or respond to one paper in another session. A month before the Winter School starts, you will be asked to send in your full chapter or article, which will be peer-reviewed and responded to during the Winter School.
- Lectures: Rosa Menkman
- Finally, this Winter School & Graduate Seminar will also offer a workshop on Research Valorisation and Fundraising Schemes by THRIVE Insitute.
Sign up for Winter School
If you are interested in participating and earning credit (both in EC and social credit from your peers), please
- Register for the Winter School before December 15, 2022 via our website. You will receive a confirmation email from our RMeS office.
- Please submit abstracts for individual presentations before January 2, 2023. Abstracts for individual presentations are max 300 words, including a clear research question or thesis statement. Please indicate on your abstract whether you would like to be in a panel with specified other participants and/or whom you consider a suitable reviewer for your paper (although we cannot promise that all your wishes will come true…).
- You can opt for two formats in terms of paper submission:
- Those of you who are in the very early stages of your PhD, may also consider to hand in your PhD proposal, which will then be commented upon by your peers. (recommended to PhDs who have just started)
- Most PhD candidates will opt to hand in a chapter/article format: a full paper of approx. 5,000 – 6,000 words.
- Full papers of (or one of the above formats) are due by January 9, 2023. On the basis of your submissions, we will group the panels, assign reviewers and organize responses. We will distribute the papers to all panel-members and assign the tasks of writing a full peer review (1-2 pages long). Each of you will have to write one peer review.
- Presentations: During the Winter School, each participant will give a presentation of 5-10 minutes. Each presentation will receive a prepared peer review (in writing, handed in the same day, and a short oral summary of the review). Another panel member will be assigned as discussant/respondent. All session members engage in discussion and feedback.
Practical matters
We invite you for drinks and dinner on Thursday night at a restaurant in Tilburg; all participants and lecturers at this Winter School are invited to join. On both days, lunches, coffee and tea will be served at the university locations. As for accommodation, you are free to choose any accommodation you want. Please make all bookings yourself.
If you are not reimbursed for travel and/or accommodation by your own faculty, you can apply for remuneration from the RMeS travel-fund. Please send an e-mail outlining your request and including a preliminary budget to Chantal Olijerhoek at rmes@rug.nl. You will be notified if you qualify for financial assistance within 14 days.