::fibreculture:: cfp Digital Media and Borders: Infrastructures, Mobilities, and Practices across Asia and Beyond

[Ned Rossiter]

Digital Media and Borders: Infrastructures, Mobilities, and Practices
across Asia and Beyond
Workshop      7-9 December 2017 Lingnan University   Hong Kong

Invited speakers: Brett Neilson, Jack Qiu, Ned Rossiter, Nishant Shah,
Ravi Sundaram

Workshop organizers: Rolien Hoyng, Iam-chong Ip, Lisa Leung, Yvonne Yau

Sponsored by: Lingnan University and Kwan Fong Cultural Research and
Development Programme.

Digital communication, despite its apparent immateriality, remains
dependent on infrastructure placed somewhere. This workshop focuses on
the intersection of urban situatedness and geo-location in order to
examine the spatial relations that digital infrastructures either make
part of or generate, especially in Asia. The internet features a layered
design, including undersea cables, Cloud architecture, platforms, and
apps. In what ways does this design reproduce or undo borders and
territories? Relinquishing assumptions of a singular global regime of
cybernetic power, how does the internet as stack transform the
governance of populations, now addressed as “users,” and what
contradictions emerge in this process? Moreover, considering that
different bodies relate to digital infrastructure differently, how do
users negotiate and exploit the modes of power afforded by digital
infrastructure? How do these processes amount to either the reproduction
of dominant formations of citizenship or alternative identifications and
subjectivities, for instance for migrants or “uncivil” users?

We welcome critical scholarship and non-traditional inquiries that help
us reflect on digital infrastructures and practices in relation to the
production of space and the particularities of place and context in Asia
and beyond.

Topics include but are not limited to:
Digital infrastructure, (extra)statecraft, urbanisms
Local or global apps, platforms, and data-driven governance
Speculative digital culture
“Uncivil” webs: hacking, porn, radical free speech, trolling
Digital media, citizenship, populism
Digital media, migration, and belonging

A conference dinner is planned for the evening of 7 December. On the
morning of the 9th we invite you to join a local excursion exploring
digital infrastructure and borders in Hong Kong. There is no conference fee.

Abstracts of max. 500 words are due by 15 July and should be sent to
digitalmediaonsite at gmail.com. Authors will be notified of acceptance via
email by the end of July. Full papers are expected no shorter than 10
days before the start of the workshop. Please provide full name,
affiliation, contact information, and a short bio with your abstract
submission. Guidelines for presentation will be provided upon acceptance
of the abstract.

Event Website: http://www.ln.edu.hk/ihss/crd/CFP2017.html
Inquiries: digitalmediaonsite at gmail.com


Lingnan University Hong Kong
Transformation For Life