Let’s Get Digital embraces the timely opportunity to critically reexamine the impacts of digital technology and the barrage of information on our perceptions of reality. Specifically, this panel is focusing on digital art, history, curatorial strategies, critical theory, emergent platforms and forms of creative expression. In bringing together a panel of artists, scholars, and curators we hope to collectively reflect on our present post-internet age, to borrow Byung-Chul Han’s term, ‘the age of like’, and what it means to engage with the digital realm, over half-a-century since its inception.

The theoretical spectrum that may be used to critically examine these topics include Hito Steyerl, Trevor Paglen, and Byung-Chul Han.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• New directions in digital art: Blockchains, sound directional art, computer generated art, transmedia, cybernetic art, alternative environments, interfaces, AR/VR.
• Virtual gallery engagement: curating, collecting, digitised collections, databases,  virtual museums, multimedia installations.
• Multimedia story-telling: ecomedia, social media, journalism, docugames, games for change.
• Infrastructure and impact: privacy, security, influence, ethics 

This CFP is part of the Universities Art Association of Canada 2022 Annual Conference. The Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC) provides a national voice for its membership, composed of university and college faculty, independent scholars, and other art professionals in the fields of art, art history, and visual culture. The 2022 UAAC-AAUC Conference will be hosted by the University of Toronto. 

The 2022 UAAC Conference will follow a hybrid model: in-person sessions will be held at University of Toronto, Hart House on October 27th through 29th, 2022. Online sessions will take place on November 4th 2022.

To Apply

• Please complete this form: https://tinyurl.com/uaac2022submission (direct link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XMG58jfVnHLtqGIzU8wH-X6B4V7W8qtFYJd4...)
• Send submissions to Elyse Longair (Queens University) and Jevonne Peters (Western University) elyse.longair@queensu.ca and hello@jevi.me 

Session type: Paper session (In Person)

Location: University of Toronto, Hart House, Toronto, ON

Dates: October 27th through 29th, 2022.

Keywords: Digital art, Virtual gallery engagement, Critical Theory, Multimedia story-telling, Infrastructure and Impact