*CFP* "TECHNOLOGY AND TRADITION", AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE

Technology and Tradition: An Interdisciplinary Conference

5th June 2020

Hosted by Futureworks, Manchester UK

Academics, and media scholars in particular, are drawn to the new, the different, and the changing. Our emphasis always seems to be on what is cutting-edge, on radical breaks from the past. Far less attention is given to the continuities. And yet, as most practitioners will tell you – be they writers, musicians, animators, artists or filmmakers – it is continuity of practice that grounds most of our artistic mediums. 

Traditional methods of approach, the rudiments, the foundations; these staples of creative media production are, we contend, often taken for granted and overlooked in our academic search for new developments. This conference aims to bring together researchers from media, music and sound, video games, film and TV, animation, sociology, history, literature, politics, art and aesthetics, to interrogate the role of tradition in digital media and technology more broadly.

Abstracts for 20-minute papers are welcomed on subjects including, but not limited to:

• How do traditional working methods encounter new technology? 
• How do technologies account for traditions of practice, for example in UI development? 
• The transfer of artistic tradition through technology 
• “Traditional technology” vs the new: when do technologies become traditions in themselves? 
• The unstudied continuities – the “fundamentals” we take for granted 
• Willful anachronisms and imposed limitations on workflows, for example writing on typewriters or using Super 8 film 
• The psychology of tradition and carrying the weight of the past

Place submit 250 abstracts with accompanying 50-word bio and 5 keywords to organizer joe.darlington@futureworks.ac.uk by 31st January 2020. Submissions are encouraged from academics, postgraduate researchers and non-academic speakers alike.

Undergraduates, MAs and early career researchers are also encouraged to submit poster presentations. These will be posted around the conference venue and a time will be allotted for presenting your work to other attendees. A small prize will be awarded for the best poster.

If you would like to submit a poster presentation, please register your interest with organiser Cormac Donnelly at Cormac.donnelly@futureworks.ac.uk by 31st January 2020.