[WebCultures] 4th International Geomedia Conference "Off the Grid" (5-8 May 2021)

[Kirsten, Karina]

Dear colleagues,

the 4th International Geomedia Conference "Off the Grid" starts Wednesday 5th of May 2021 at 10am. We are looking forward to keynote talks by Caren Kaplan, Nanna Verhoeff, and Bernhard Siegert. Geomedia 2021 is hosted by the Graduate School Locating Media<http://www.locatingmedia.uni-siegen.de/> and the CRC Media of Cooperation<https://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/de/>. It is organized in collaboration with the Geomedia Group at Karlstad University<https://www.kau.se/geomedia>.

Please register on https://www.conftool.pro/geomedia-2021/ to get access to the Zoom links. For more information about registration, conference program, and practical arrangements please visit: www.geomediastudies.com<http://www.geomediastudies.com/> or contact info at geomediastudies.com<mailto:info at geomediastudies.com>

4th International Geomedia Conference "Off the Grid“

SCHEDULE: May, 5th – 8th 2021 (CEST) www.geomediastudies.com<http://www.geomediastudies.com/>
REGISTRATION: https://www.conftool.pro/geomedia-2021/
LOCATION: online

Geomedia provides a genuinely interdisciplinary platform for research carried out at the nexus of Geography, Media, and Film Studies. The aim of the conference series is to map out the current terrain of media geographical research, pinpointing its main areas of debate and assessing the prospects of media geography as a more formalized academic field. 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 also speaks to the geographic coordinate system, an all-encompassing global structure which makes it possible to accurately locate any point on earth. This unified grid represents a dominant ordering principle for everything “locatable”. Going off the grid has also been seen as a form of renunciation of the conveniences of the late capitalist (media) world in order to lead a supposedly slower, less stressful and eventually less superficial life – as inspired by the transcendentalism of the likes of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. But with so many people relying on the grid for purposes of work and entertainment in recent times, what does this mean for our relation to geomedia? What does ‘going off the grid’ look like now?


—
Dr. des. Karina Kirsten
Wissenschaftliche Koordinatorin
SFB 1187 "Medien der Kooperation"
Universität Siegen
Herrengarten 3
57072 Siegen
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