I am extremly pleased that the Geomedia 2021 will take place in Siegen. The conference is hosted by the Graduate School Locating Media and the CRC Media of Cooperation at the Department of Media Research, University of Siegen. The conference is organized in collaboration with the initiators, the Geomedia Group in Karlstad, Sweden. kau.se/en/geomedia
The theme of this fine conference is: OFF THE GRID
The phrase “off the grid” is commonly understood to refer to the voluntary decoupling from established infrastructure networks such as electricity, water or gas supply. The implication is one of material independence and a self-sufficient lifestyle. Going “off the grid” means making yourself invisible by rebuking the social and technological structures that normally organize our lives. It is entering, or returning to, uncharted territory. The grid from which you disappear is often imagined like a web that we are woven into, at once providing security – of cultural connectivity, opportunities to work, or societal participation – while also limiting individual, political or technological agency.
Keynote Speakers:
Caren Kaplan – University of California at Davis, USA
Nanna Verhoeff – Utrecht University, Netherlands
Suggested paper topics include, but are not limited to:
- Politics, philosophy and ethics of going off grid
- Grid as Network, Grid as Default (Geomedia and Infrastructure)
- Physical Geography/Relational Geography
- Inhabiting Digital Geographies (VR, hybrid spaces)
- Geomedia in the Global South
- Urban and Rural Geomedia
- The ‘geo’ in Geomedia, the ‘media’ in Geomedia
- Governing Geomedia (smart city, sensor media, infrastructures, surveillance & countersurveillance)
- Geomedia Activism
- Digital detox, rationing, quarantine and isolation
- Geomedia Histories
Click here for the full version of the CfP
October 31st 2020: Submission system opens January 7th 2021: Deadline for thematic panel and individual paper proposals January 25th 2021: Notes of acceptance and registration opens March 15th 2021: Last day of registration