Introduction

Greetings and salutations, interwebs. I'm Alex, from Toronto, and I run a comic called Tales of a Neo-Luddite. I have a fancy-paper BAhon in Cultural Studies Critical Theory from McMaster University in Hamilton, ON, Canada. Also in Art, which I found out is like the Australian Rules football of culture.

I build robots, draw comics, and moderate a couple of livejournal communities for fun, but not yet any profit worth noting. I hope to quit my dayjob and become a full-time designer and illustrator in the near future, but a distracting love of machinery and critical theory has thus far broken my focus.

My favorite theorists are Julia Kristeva and Donna Haraway, because liminal space is awesome.

the look

A bit of an adminny post here - first it would be good to get those introductions happening, as I have invited a couple of others to join - including another Net Studies PhD who is in Victoria.

Also tho I don't mind the layout of this new template I cannot live with the bright pink background. really I can't - it hurts my eyes. I tried to change it, but it would only change colour halfwaydown the page. So come on you young web2.0 savvy geekgrrls - show me the way. I can't believe we're still sitting here with a standard template ;-)

As a female student commented in a guest lecture I gave last week: 'its not really worth doing your own blog unless you write the code yourself'! well, perhaps we don't have to go that far, but consider the gauntlet thrown girls!
helen

Visual arts symposium in perth

Hi all

saw this recent call for a symposium coming up at curtin - might be of interest to some of us...

We invite researchers from across the university to submit brief outlines of current research projects that creatively employ visualisation systems for an upcoming symposium. The one-day symposium, 25 June 2007 at 202:122, is hosted by The
Centre for Research in Environment Art and Materiality in the Department of Art in conjunction with the Departments of Design, Architecture, Building and Construction, and Urban Planning in the Faculty of Built Environment Art and Design. Part of an ‘incubator’ project, the event is intended to foster interdisciplinary research and collaborations in the design, practice and critique of immaterial and material visualisation.

At the symposium we will address the topic of visualisation in short presentations and chaired discussions that focus on how emerging technologies and convergence are impacting all disciplines, and the ways in which creativity and innovation are taking key roles in the development of new research clusters. It is envisaged that the symposium will uncover synergies that exist within the Division of Humanities and the broader University research community — evidencing potential research clusters in this increasingly significant area.

Please send a brief outline of your area of research and a description of what you intend to present (50 words or less will be sufficient) to the symposium coordinator, Kate Vickers on visualsym@mac.com by 8 June. A poster session may also be organized for people unable to attend, or if there are too many submission to fit the time available. The symposium is open to all researchers, post-graduate students and undergraduates. General enquiries can be sent to Dr Paul Thomas p.thomas@curtin.edu.au. A report will be published on the proceedings.

introductions

we're getting quite a collection of awesome nrrd grrls here;)

how about we all write a little post about ourselves as an introduction to each other

still open workshops

There are some very interesting workshops coming up in September in brisbane, melbourne, and believe or not, Perth! Here's the blurb from the stillopen website:

Still Open will be as a series of free two-day workshops in Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane, each accompanied by a public evening forum. Facilitators will work with 15 artists, scientists, writers and developers in each city to introduce open source modes of thinking and resources for collaborative and distributed development; to provide hands on experience; and to initiate local networks and projects.

Still Open focuses on both the practice and theory of open source which can be applied through networked art and software development, print and online publishing, and in the scientific arena where the open science movement encourages a collaborative environment in which science can be pursued by anyone who is inspired to discover something new about the natural world.

Lab Facilitators are publisher and media artist Alessandro Ludovico (Italy) editor in chief of the online and print publication Neural; free software hacker and new media activist Andy Nicholson (Australia) who is part of the Engage Media collective; and interdisciplinary artist and researcher Beatriz da Costa (USA), who works with open science.

Workshop dates

Melbourne:	6th, 7th September 2007 at Digital Harbour
Perth:	11th, 12th September 2007 at The Bakery ARTRAGE Complex
Brisbane:	15th, 16th September 2007 at the QUT Creative Industries Precinct

Lets hope some of us NUB*s get in and can report back!

*should we be worried about this acronym? :-)

oops!

I just realised that with my last post I have committed a grave error - and contravened one of the cyberfeminist anti-theses:
#79. cyberfeminism is not science fiction

hmmm - but they may often be sisters, no? :-)

userpics & slushbombs

I was thinking that one thing we can do on this blog is give heads up to S about cool userpics we see. (I won't explain here, but S is doing a DCA which involves looking at female self-representation on web2.0).

So I really liked the look of this one cos its so sfnal.

Then I also saw velourmane's notice about the "Call to Women Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Slush Bomb Analog, August 18 2007" :

What's a slush bomb?

A community effort of women science fiction and fantasy writers will be sending our work to Analog on August 18, 2007. Why not join us?

Historical and social trends have led to an imbalance in science fiction -- in many of the major markets, more men than women are published. There's a lot of debate about why this happens, but one undeniable reason is that more men than women submit their work to the major magazines.

The slush bomb strives to lessen this imbalance by organizing community efforts for women to send their work to major markets on the same day. Last year, Charles Coleman Finlay organized the first slush bomb, which went to the Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Analog is the market we've selected this year because it is the most traditionally masculine of the three big markets. It publishes hard science fiction, a genre that has historically been male-dominated. Among other things, hopefully this year's slush bomb will encourage more women to write some hard SF!

See here for more!

I love it! a very cyberfeministy SF action :-)

cheers
helen