Announcing BIOS: The Poetics of Life in Digital Media, hosted by the
Center for Literary Computing at West Virginia University in
Morgantown, WV. September 14-16, 2006.

BIOS: The Poetics of Life in Digital Media is an interdisciplinary
symposium on the reinvention of life in digital media. The term BIOS
captures capture boundary-crossing and hybridization of human and
machine. For the ancient Greeks, BIOS referred to particular forms of
life rather than life in general (zoe). BIOS therefore, was the form
of life specific to the development of human society and political
culture. Understanding BIOS means understanding how humans adapt
nature into culture. In computer science, by contrast, BIOS means
something quite different: the basic input output system, the lowest
level of code that allows a computer to run. BIOS is burnt into
computer hardware and enables the machine to boot and run software
programs and media. The two meanings of BIOS resonate with each other
as basic requirements for a social system, whether in civic space or
in cyberspace.

BIOS will combine talks and creative work / performances. We already
plan a rich and exciting schedule. Proposals are welcome on any area
within the topic. Keywords/subtopics include but are not limited to:
electronic literature; hypertext; embodiment; media specific analysis;
net.art; digital performance; complexity and emergence; the limits of
computability; posthumanism and cyborgs; virtual reality; artificial
life; biotechnology; cyberfeminism; biopower; social software; ...
Innovative formats and approaches are welcome. We will also consider
remote/tele-presentations. Webcasts/podcasts of the event and an DVD
archive will be available. Send proposals of no longer than 200 words
to clc_at_mail.wvu.edu by July 1, 2006.

BIOS is organized and hosted by the Center for Literary Computing, and
co-organized by the Electronic Poetry Center / Digital Media Studies
program at SUNY-Buffalo. The symposium is associated with the E-Poetry
series of festivals and symposia.

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Received on Sat May 20 2006 - 10:07:32 EDT