[P2P-F] CfP Platform Politics, Cambridge (UK), 12-13 May 2011

[Franco Iacomella]

> *Platform Politics - Call for Papers*
> *A Multidisciplinary Conference in Cambridge, UK, 12 & 13 May, 2011*
>
>
> *Deadline for abstract (400 words) = Monday 14 February 2011*
>
> Wired recently announced the ‘death’ of the Web, based on the premise
> that platforms are becoming the primary mode of access to the
> Internet. Platforms are portals or applications that offer specific
> Internet services, frameworks for social interaction, or interfaces to
> access other networked communications and information distribution
> systems. Additionally the prevalence of mobile computing and its
> operating systems, that prioritise Internet access via ‘apps’ not web
> browsers, is intensifying this transformation, and this model is now
> being applied to tablet computing - and may well soon spread into
> general computing and computer mediated communication. These platforms
> are able to take advantage of the scale-free architecture of the
> Internet to built very large user bases and communities of interest.
> However, unlike the world-wide-web, these platforms are often
> proprietorial, have closed protocols and operate as a kind of
> privatised public space. As such platforms themselves are becoming the
> object and enabler of politics, but also new arenas of control.
> Therefore network politics can be seen as pertaining not only to the
> question of content (what questions, agendas and activities are taken
> up and promoted as political?) but also to the role of platforms and
> apps as political ‘objects’ that shape the form and the structure of
> political mediation.
>
> Such proprietorial platforms as Facebook and Twitter have been used in
> the various modes of organization of political events, both on and
> offline, and have been discussed with enthusiasm as new tools for
> stimulating the democratic process, with electoral campaigns, and as
> organising tools to influence public opinion and create pressure
> groups. At the same time the proprietorial nature of these platforms
> and their role as an integral part of a ‘communicative capitalism’
> works to create a situation of great ambiguity and has not gone
> unnoticed in either network theory or software development. There is,
> however, an emerging movement of software development for activism,
> and non-proprietorial social networking, that places at its core the
> values of openness, decentralisation and not-for-profit projects -
> such as Diaspora and Thimbl - that are emblematic of the alternative
> political economies of network politics. So the question of how
> politics is increasingly processed through the form of software and
> hardware design, as well as the hacking of closed platforms and
> creation of peer-to-peer networks, is a pressing one. This conference
> thus wishes to engage with the full range of these concerns and to map
> out the place of software, hardware and online platforms, as a realm
> of both control, but also as opportunity for radical political
> practices, in the ‘democratising’ of democracy, and in the challenge
> to the ‘interpassive’ political economy of communicative capitalism.
>
> Hence, this conference is interested in such questions as:
>
> What are the platforms on which network politics takes place and what
> can we think of as political ‘action’ in this context?
> What are the particular forms of platform politics and how can we
> theorize such forms and practices?
> Can we extend critical theory into such new modalities as media
> critique through software?
> How to think circuit bending, hardware hacking and such practices as
> political?
> What are the future forms and new conceptualisations of hacking that
> merit attention?
> Can we really conceive the ‘openness’ of FLOSS (Free, Libre, Open
> Source Software) as a genuinely radical practice or
> rather another circuit in the production of communicative capital?
> Is it too late to ‘de-monetise’ social media?
>
> We invite theoretical interventions, empirical papers, as well as case
> studies from theorists, practitioners, and activists to engage with
> the question of “platform politics”.
>
> Speakers include: Nick Couldry (Goldsmiths College, University of
> London), (Michael Goddard (University of Salford), Tim Jordan (King’s
> College, University of London), Dmytri Kleiner (Telekommunisten),
> Tiziana Terranova (University of Naples, L’Orientale). Also with Greg
> Elmer (Ryerson University) and Ganaele Langlois (University of Ontario
> Institute of Technology) representing the Infoscape Research Lab
> <http://www.infoscapelab.ca/>.
>
> Please send your abstracts of up to 400 words by Monday 14 February
> 2011 to both organisers:joss.hands at anglia.ac.uk
> <mailto:joss.hands at anglia.ac.uk> and jussi.parikka at anglia.ac.uk
> <mailto:jussi.parikka at anglia.ac.uk> - acceptances will be announced by
> Monday 7 March 2011.
>
> This conference is part of the project Exploring New Configurations of
> Network Politics, funded by the AHRC and situated at Anglia Ruskin
> University, Cambridge, UK. The project’s previous events have tackled
> methodological and theoretical questions underpinning network
> politics, as well as new object oriented approaches for
> interdisciplinary analysis.
>
> More info on the project:
> http://www.networkpolitics.org
>