Radical Open Access: Experiments in (Post-)Publishing Symposium

Friday, 1 October 2021

With the demise of traditional gatekeepers, we are witnessing the rapid rise of alternative modes of both scholarly publishing and distribution as well as the artistic exhibition of computer generated works of art in digital environments. The rise of open access and collaborative platforms are in fact blurring the distinctions between publishing as a significant force of cultural activity in both contemporary art and leading-edge academic venues.

In this context, the symposium will question the current corporatized systems of academic publishing and the commercial-driven art museum and upmarket gallery systems, as well as serve as a forum to interrogate new models of collective action for collaborating on, creating, and sharing scholarship and art. This event has been organised in collaboration with the Post-Publishing programme (https://postpublishing.postdigitalcultures.org) at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures (Coventry University, UK), and forms part of a series of symposia exploring contemporary approaches to experimental publishing.

The Radical Open Access: Experiments in (Post-)Publishing Symposium will be a hybrid event, with a mix of remote and onsite participation at the University of Colorado Boulder on Friday, 1 October 2021. This event will be followed by a “Clinic for Open Source Arts (COSA).”

Light breakfast, refreshments and lunch will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there!

Registration

The event is free and open to all virtually, with in-person registration limited to 25 people for the symposium and 15 for the COSA. Register here (url: https://forms.gle/26c1SuDt1pBXwuQWA). Confirmations with zoom information with be sent the week of the event.

Schedule (Mountain Time)

  • 9:00 Catered breakfast [CBIS, Norlin Library]
  • 9:25 Introductions
  • 9:30 Keynote: Joanna Zylinska (speaking virtually)
  • 9:55 Keynote: Gary Hall (speaking virtually)
  • 10:20 Keynote: Janneke Adema (speaking virtually)
  • 10:45 Q&A with keynote speakers
  • 11:15 Presentation: Danny Snelson (speaking in person)
  • 11:35 Presentation: Davin Heckman (speaking in person)
  • 11:55 Q&A
  • 12:15 Catered Lunch [around the corner in N410, Norlin Library]
  • 12:30-2:30pm Clinic for Open Source Arts [N410, Norlin Library, speaking in person]

Speakers and Biographies

Keynotes

  • Joanna Zylinska is a writer, lecturer, artist, curator, and – according to the ImageNet Roulette’s algorithm – a ‘mediatrix’. She is Professor of Media Philosophy & Critical Digital Practice in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London. The author of many books – including The End of Man: A Feminist Counterapocalypse (University of Minnesota Press, 2018), Nonhuman Photography (MIT Press, 2017) and Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene (Open Humanities Press, 2014) – she is also involved in more experimental and collaborative publishing projects, such as Photomediations (Open Humanities Press, 2016). Her own art practice involves playing with different kinds of image-based media.
  • Gary Hall is Professor of Media in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at Coventry University, UK, where he co-directs the Centre for Postdigital Cultures, which brings together media theorists, practitioners, activists and artists. In 1999 he co-founded the critical theory journal Culture Machine, an early champion of open access in the humanities, while in 2006 he co-founded Open Humanities Press, the first open access publishing house explicitly dedicated to critical and cultural theory. Recent publications include The Inhumanist Manifesto (Techne Lab, 2017), Pirate Philosophy (MIT Press, 2016) and The Uberfication of the University (Minnesota UP, 2016). He is currently completing a monograph titled Liberalism Must Be Defeated for Joanna Zylinska’s new Media:Art:Write:Now series.
  • Janneke Adema (she/her) is a cultural and media theorist working in the fields of (book) publishing and digital culture. She is an Assistant Professor in Digital Media at The Centre for Postdigital Cultures (Coventry University). In her research she explores the future of scholarly communications and experimental forms of knowledge production, where her work incorporates processual and performative publishing, radical open access, post-publishing, scholarly poethics, media studies, book history, cultural studies, and critical theory. She explores these issues in depth in her various publications, but also by supporting a variety of scholar-led, not-for-profit publishing projects, including the Radical Open Access Collective, Open Humanities Press, ScholarLed, and Post Office Press (POP), and the Research England and Arcadia funded Community-Led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) project, on which she is Co-PI. She has recently published her monograph Living Books. Experiments in the Posthumanities (MIT Press, 2021). You can follow her research on openreflections.wordpress.com.

Clinic for Open Source Arts

  • Chris Coleman was born in West Virginia and he received his MFA from SUNY Buffalo in New York. His work includes sculptures, videos, creative coding and interactive installations. Coleman has had his work in exhibitions and festivals in more than 25 countries including Brazil, Argentina, Singapore, Finland, the U.A.E., Italy, Germany, France, China, the UK, Latvia, and across North America. He currently resides in Denver, CO and is a Professor of Emergent Digital Practices and the Director of the Clinic for Open Source Arts at the University of Denver.
  • The Clinic for Open Source Arts will host conversations around open source digital tools for creativity. Discussions will include what tools are out there, issues around using open source at the University, and how educational institutions can be involved in supporting and contributing to the open source creative ecosystem.

Speakers

  • Danny Snelson is a writer, editor, and archivist working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at UCLA. His online editorial work can be found on PennSound, Eclipse, UbuWeb, and the EPC. He is the publisher of Edit Publications and founding editor of the Jacket2 Reissues project. His books include Apocalypse Reliquary: 1984-2000 (Monoskop, 2018), Radios (Make Now, 2016), EXE TXT (Gauss PDF, 2015), Epic Lyric Poem (Troll Thread, 2014), and Inventory Arousal with James Hoff (Bedford Press/Architectural Association, 2011). With Mashinka Firunts Hakopian and Avi Alpert, he performs as one-third of the academic performance group Research Service. He is currently developing a manuscript exploring online collections of art and letters entitled The Little Database: A Poetics of Formats. His work across media formats may be found at http://dss-edit.com
  • Davin Heckman is the author of A Small World: Smart Houses and the Dream of the Perfect Day (Duke UP, 2008). He is Managing Director of the Consortium on Electronic Literature (cellproject.net) and serves on the board of the Electronic Literature Organization, electronic book review, Rhizomes.net, Hyperrhiz, and other venues for experimental media and theory. He is Professor of Mass Communication at Winona State University, where he teaches courses on creative digital media storytelling and media theory.

Our Sponsors at the University of Colorado Boulder

  • College of Media, Communication & Information (CMCI), Practice-Based Research and Digital Humanities Group
  • Intermedia Art, Writing and Performance (IAWP)
  • Center for Research Data & Digital Scholarship
  • Coventry University Centre for Post Digital Cultures
  • Arts & Sciences Support of Education Through Technology (ASSETT)
  • TECHNE Lab
  • Research & Innovation Office

Our Organizers

  • Mark Amerika, Professor, Intermedia Art, Writing and Performance, CU Boulder
  • Melissa Cantrell, Assistant Professor and Scholarly Communications Librarian, CU Boulder
  • Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, Assistant Professor and Digital Scholarship Librarian, CU Boulder