
Politics of the Machines
Rogue Research
The 3rd POM Conference
September 13-18, 2021
In a demand for more transparency, multiple movements are making a turn toward democratising knowledge and technology. They are exploring the potentials of open data, software, hardware and wetware to battle concealed hierarchies and partisan paradigms – eliciting a practice of counter-coding in a proliferating politics of machines.
Within the Politics of the Machines conference series – following Copenhagen (2018) and Beirut (2019), the third POM conference will take place in Berlin on 13-18 of September 2021, hosted by the chair for Open Science at the Technische Universität Berlin and the Einstein Center Digital Future.
The goal of this edition of POM is to debate and devise concepts and practices that seek to critically question and unravel novel modes of science – what roles do academia, researchers, scientists, artists and designers have to take on in times of crisis, how must we re/position ourselves? What chances or challenges might the democratisation of technology and knowledge elicit, and what potential do practices such as critical making, community science, trans/feminist hacking or citizen forensics hold to bend the hierarchies of power – how can we work with active matter and technical turmoil to re/act?
‘POM Berlin – Rogue Research’ aims to probe new methodological approaches from art, design and civic activism within the framework of academia in order to surface an inter- and transdisciplinary terrain that attempts to exceed the boundaries of theory and practice, academia and activism, and science and civil society.
We aim to carry out this conference as a hybrid online/offline event based in Berlin, should the circumstances of the current pandemic permit. However, notwithstanding the format, the contributions will form the foundations for the planned publication.
Christina Shoux Casey (Aalborg University, DK)
Grisha Coleman (Arizona State University, US)
Marco Donnarumma (Academy for Theatre and Digitality, DE)
Elizabeth Jochum (Aalborg University, DK)
We invite contributions that critically inquire issues of race, gender and disability as they relate to performing machines/technological bodies. We aim at diverse and inclusive scholarship and practice that emphasise decolonial thinking/making. In coordination with the POM theme ‘Rogue Research’, we encourage theory and research involving critical and experimental approaches.
Such inquiry might address topics such as:
– Race/gender/disability bias in robotic/cyborg art
– Algorithmic oppression in robotic/cyborg art, computational racialization
– Critical phenomenology and histories of race and technology in robotic/cyborg art
– Indigenous technologies/epistemologies in art and performance
– Black feminist theory, critical race studies, critical feminism, critical embodiment studies, disability studies, cybertheory, somatechnics, critical posthumanism
Ingrid Cogne (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, AT)
María Antonia González Valerio (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, MX)
Space is something constructed and negotiated with and through many agents and agencies. Space hosts both physical and perceptive navigation and occupation. The question is ‘How’ to enter a physical-material space that proposes possible entangled modes of being in, becoming, constituting, as well as accepting the invisible and perceiving the immaterial ‘in’ spaces.
Inquiries might address topics such as:
– Translating spaces
– Voices, wordings and non/humans
– Conversing with immaterial and invisible presences
– Reading bodies: Navigations – occupations – relationalities
– Organisms and environments
Track Chairs
Mariana Perez Bobadilla (DeTao Masters Academy, CN)
Clio Flego (University of Genoa, IT)
Marta de Menezes (Cultivamos Cultura, PT)
Joel Ong (York University, CA)
Inquiries might address topics such as:
– Making kin and the ethics of care
– Challenging the structures of biocontrol and biosurveillance
– Adaptive strategies, including feminist making approaches to working with living organisms
– Composite/distributed identity and forms of non-human perception
– Integrated self and applied microperformativity
Catherine Bernard (State University of New York, US)
Matt Garcia (Dominican University of California / Desert ArtLAB, US)
Relayed by a number of grassroots and activist groups, artists and collectives in various world communities are mounting a growing opposition to the disregard of the extractive industries for ecological destruction and the disempowerment of local communities.
Inquiries might address topics such as:
– Politics of the extractive industries, geo-politics, land appropriation, the commons, exploitative mining on indigenous lands
– The impact of extractive industries on local and indigenous economies and livelihoods
– Gender roles in the exploitation of earth and natural resources, feminist justice strategies for the sharing of natural resources
– Complex interdependencies between renewable energies and the extraction of minerals
– Electronics and military sector dependencies on rare earth elements and the environmental impact of their extraction
Gameli Adzaho (Global Lab Network, GH)
Stephen Kovats (r0g Agency, DE)
Thomas Mboa (Mboalab, CM)
Khadidiatou Sall (SeeSD, SN)
Inquiries might address topics such as:
– Democratizing science and development
– DIY tech: open source software, hardware and wetware for development
– DIY biology, biotechnology, bioeconomy, open education and environmental activism
– Making in response to crisis
– Spaces and practices of techno-decoloniality
Patrícia J. Reis (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, AT)
Taguhi Torosyan (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, AT)
Stefanie Wuschitz (TU Berlin, DE)
Inquiries might address topics such as:
– Transfeminist hacking – towards a (new*) method
– Feminist economies vs gendered commodity chains
– Eco-feminism and its discontents, de-growth ecologies and possible futures – zero cost, zero waste, zero harm
– Ethical hardware – tools of the redistribution of the sensible
– Empirical methodologies and practices for critical (art) making
Deadline March 1, 2021
Extended March 15, 2021
Applicants are invited to submit a 500-word abstract under one of the six conference tracks by 15.03.2021. Submissions without a track selection will be assigned to an appropriate track by the conference organizers.
Following acceptance of the abstract, authors are requested to submit their full paper (max. 4000 words including references) by 01.07.2021.
All submissions will undergo double blind peer-review and accepted papers will be presented in the conference programme and published in the open access conference proceedings.
All participation in POM Berlin will be free of charge, however, please keep in mind that we cannot provide financial support.
15.03.2021 Submissions of Abstracts
01.05.2021 Notifications of Acceptance
01.07.2021 Full Paper Submission
01.09.2021 Final Paper Submission
13.09.2021-18.09.2021
POM Berlin – Rogue Research /
Hybrid Digital-Live Conference
Technische Universität Berlin /
Einstein Center Digital Future
Dr. Michelle Christensen
Visiting Professor
(Open Science / Critical Culture)
Technische Universität Berlin / Einstein Center Digital Future
Berlin University of the Arts / Weizenbaum Institute
Dr. Florian Conradi
Visiting Professor
(Open Science / Critical Design)
Technische Universität Berlin / Einstein Center Digital Future
Berlin University of the Arts / Weizenbaum Institute
Associate Professor / MediaAC Academic Director
School of Communication, Music, Art & Technology – Aalborg University
Associate Professor of Visual Culture and Artistic Practices – Aalto University
Associate Professor/Director
Institute of Visual Communication
The International University of Beirut
Associate Director
Institute of Visual Communication
The International University of Beirut
Mads Øvlisen Fellow, Art and Natural Science
Aalborg University-Copenhagen
Affiliated Fellow, Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin