Call for Participation

Balance-Unbalance 2017 A Sense of Place:

How can we appreciate a Sense of Place in the space between the local and the global? Do our GIS technologies enhance or supress the psychology of distance that distinguishes between them and us in times of environmental crisis? Are we making sense of our remote sensors in our telematic umwelt? Virtual simulations create powerful immersive experiences, but are they just distracting us from the complexities of feeling the volatile environment? Do we have the mental dexterity and visual literacy to comprehend these trasnscalar networked ecologies? From the overview to the nanoscape, BunB 2017 will critically explore our (missing) Sense of Place.

A Sense of Place aims to provoke discussion, reflection and action to address the imminent social, economic and cultural impact of climate change. Balance-Unbalance cultivates transdisciplinary relationships and initiatives which seek to provide insights, awareness, innovation, behaviour change and resolutions. To achieve these ambitions Balance-Unbalance explores innovative art and technology practices that provide new models which enhance participation, public engagement, information literacy and ecological action.

Submissions:

Balance-Unbalance 2017 invites papers, transdisciplinary workshops, artistic activities and artefacts (including VR and Fulldome content), posters and panels that respond to the provocation provided by the ‘Sense of Place’ theme. These initiatives should propose new opportunities for digital/electronic/media arts to catalyse transdisciplinary activity and behaviour change to help solve our global environmental crisis.

BunB 2017 wishes to build on the work of previous BunB Conferences by cultivating virtual and networked models which allow increased diversity, access and dissemination whilst significantly reducing the carbon footprint of a major international conference.

Deadline for submissions:

By popular request the BunB2017 Submission deadline has been extended to Monday 13 February!

February 13, 2017 (midnight, UK time). January 16, 2017.

Notification of acceptance: March 17 2017 February 28.

Templates:

Papers and Panels will be double blind peer reviewed through Easychair by the Artistic / Academic Review Committee.

Posters will be exhibited in the Roland Levinsky Building Cross Point area outside of the conference lecture theatres.

Installations, performances, artefacts will be installed in several venues and locations around Plymouth and across the North Devon Biosphere.

Transdisciplinary workshops will take place in a variety of locations at Plymouth University (i-DAT, IVT, SEI, Art+Sound), and partner organisations (North Devon Biosphere, Beaford Arts, RIO).

Virtual and Networked initiatives will take place through telematic / conferencing / streaming / broadcasting / networked artefacts (IoT).

Screenings of Fulldome work will take place in the Immersive Vision Theatre and VR productions for Vive, Oculus Rift and other VR platforms will be exhibited. Fulldome spec: 3200×3200, 30 FPS, Quicktime mov files with the DXV3 Codec https://resolume.com/software/codec, uncompressed audio. 25°/truncated – see dome master: http://balance-unbalance2017.i-dat.org/files/2016/12/IVT-Template.zip

Submissions will be only accepted via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bunb2017
Templates will be provided soon. All submissions must be in English.

Publication:

Publishing opportunities are being explored through the Balance-Unbalance relationship with the Leonardo journal, published by The MIT Press and Ubiquity: The Journal of Pervasive Media, published by Intellect Ltd. [free issue here].