::fibreculture:: EXCESSIVE RESEARCH ­ call for participation, Ph.D./research workshop

[Ned Rossiter]

EXCESSIVE RESEARCH – call for participation, Ph.D./research workshop
http://www.aprja.net

Organized by:
• APRJA (A Peer-Reviewed Journal About_).
• Participatory IT Research Centre, Aarhus University (Geoff Cox & 
Christian Ulrik Andersen)
• transmediale/art&digitalculture (Kristoffer Gansing)
• Contemporary Art Lab, Liverpool John Moores University, in partnership 
with Liverpool Biennial (Joasia Krysa)

For the workshop, we will be joined by Wolfgang Sützl (Ohio University), 
and other invited guests (TBA).

Submission deadline, Aug 31, 2015 (notification by Sept 4)
Workshop in Liverpool, UK, Nov 03-05, 2015
Online activity, from Sept 28, 2015

ABOUT
The research/Ph.D. workshop EXCESSIVE RESEARCH relates to the 
announcement of transmediale 2016, ‘Conversation Piece’ 
(http://www.transmediale.de/festival ) which highlights the compulsive 
actions of digital culture, and how we are constantly encouraged to stay 
active, to make, to share and to secure. A culture of sharing, for 
instance, is evidently one of the most noticeable idealized activities 
of a networked society and how value is created. In the research/Ph.D. 
seminar we encourage participants to extend and nuance the discussions 
of closed/open, proprietary/non-proprietary, 
non-participatory/participatory dichotomies and delve into the nature of 
sharing, making, securing, acting and their limits. What happens when 
research is less about exchange and more about excess?

The compulsory and idealized actions of a networked society are often 
composite activities. They are idealized by network ‘pirates’, and at 
the same time the conveyors of new agile innovation strategies, and 
modes of economic and symbolic exchange. They are constitutive for our 
cultural being (e.g. ‘sharing is caring’), and at the same time they can 
be a threat if the logic of accumulation is challenged by focussing on 
excess, loss and indebtedness. In a recent article On Sharing 
(http://kunsthalaarhus.dk/en/research#overlay=en/research/on-sharing) 
and referring to Bataille’s notion of excess, Wolfgang Sützl writes how 
we need to look beyond our existing terms of exchange to include 
“anti-economic, political and existential meanings” in order to expand 
our understanding of sharing and how we create communities of action.

Through highlighting excess,the workshop asks where the limits of 
exchange reside? Given how research is bound to some of these compulsory 
actions through open structures of exchange, we seek proposals that 
respond to this: both in terms of how research might go beyond itself; 
beyond its own systems of exchange that are ever more economised 
(notably in the UK where we hold this workshop), and in terms of its 
application to other research subjects and Ph.D. projects that study 
some of these compulsory actions of contemporary art and digital culture 
(i.e., acting, making, sharing, securing, etc.).

CONTEXT
Since 2011, Aarhus University and transmediale have organised research 
workshops as part of an ongoing collaboration with shifting partner 
organizations: In/Compatible Research, Universität der Künste (Berlin, 
2011); Researching #BWPWAP, Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Lüneburg, 
2012); Post-digital Research, Kunsthal Aarhus (Aarhus, 2013); Datafied 
Research, School of Creative Media, City University Hong Kong (Hong 
Kong, 2014). Each of these workshops has resulted in the publication of 
a peer-reviewed newspaper as an experiment in new forms of scholarly 
publication, and an open access online academic journal, APRJA (A 
Peer-reviewed Journal About_).

Excessive Research will further explore new frameworks for collaborative 
research, presenting outcomes at transmediale 2016 as a newspaper as 
well as in other ways. In addition, lengthier substantial research 
articles, produced as a result of the workshop, are invited for 
submission to APRJA (www.aprja.net).

The workshop aims to provide a forum for emerging researchers to enter 
into speculation, critique, exchange and dialogue about their research 
topic. The primary focus is on the participants’ individual research 
projects, as well fostering networking, knowledge exchange and widening 
dissemination. Although the workshop is primarily aimed at international 
PhD researchers, it is also open to researchers such as artists and 
programmers who are pursuing research without institutional support.

The workshop is free but travel and other costs are expected to be met 
by participants or their institutions.

WORKLOAD & CREDITS
Expected workloads include the production of a short text prior to the 
workshop, presentation of research, response and dialogue with other 
participants, the production of contents for a “Peer-Reviewed 
Newspaper”, and the production of a lengthier research article invited 
for submission to A Peer Reviewed Journal About_.

PhD students can be awarded 5 ECTS for their full participation. In 
addition, participants are invited to join the presentation of Excessive 
Research at transmediale 2016.

SUBMISSION
We are seeking proposals consisting of a biography (500 characters), a 
statement on current research/description of PhD project (1000 
characters), and a short description of how this research relates to the 
workshop theme (500 characters).
• The deadline for the call is August 31, 2015
• Notification by September 4, 2015

Submissions will be possible using an online form: 
http://transmediale.de/content/registration-form-excessive-research-0