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Call for Proposals to the Spring 2024 CCAM Ultra Space Symposium: Adaptation/s
2nd Annual Printed Volume
2nd Annual Printed Volume
Application Instructions:
At any given point while inside the MItaka Lofts in Tokyo designed by Arakawa and Gins, one can see a minimum of six colors. This system of colors is not complex, nor does it offer a coherent pattern—it creates an offering for the senses. This was intended by Arakawa and Gins as a way to express what it feels like for the body to be in and among nature while inhabiting the domestic routines (and inner worlds) of modern apartment living in Tokyo. They believed there were human senses we do not yet know of, and wanted to figure them out by making the spaces and objects of an environment fill those senses. On the flipside, for researchers investigating artificial life and complex systems, such as Professor Takashi Ikegami from Tokyo University, his work explores how systems—whether biological or artificial—adapt to spaces and objects of various environments, both terrestrial and elsewhere.
Considering the dual definition of adaptation in the context of material form, emergence, and poetry, what are ways in which we can embody and evolve perception? How can we use our entire body to see?
These ideas and questions have inspired the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) at Yale's Spring 2024 Ultra Space Symposium: Adaptation/s, which will bring together discussions, performances, and works of art that engage them. This call invites short proposals (3,000 characters max) for writing (such as articles, essays, or reviews) and creative responses (such as short fiction, a selection of photographs or visual materials, instructions for use, or poetry) that will explore them further. Accepted authors/creators will present and discuss their work in person at CCAM as part of the symposium on April 4 and 5, 2024, with final versions to be included in a printed volume.
We are looking for proposals that address the following prompts, many of which invite you to dig in to further explorations of The Architectural Body by Arakawa and Gins:
- How can you sculpt a world, a reality, a universe through the Reversible Destiny lens?
- How might you develop instructions for living & interacting in any dimension?
- How can we take the measurement of an isovist beyond metrics?
- What are non-linear approaches to reading a space?
- What is the "person-organism surround" to you?
- What are physical manifestations of emergence and self-organization?
- How does an organism person?
- How do you keep your “puzzle creature” in sight?
- What are mechanisms for “cleaving”—joining together and sundering apart? What are simple acts of cleaving in the routines of everyday life that have profound impact on shaping awareness or evolution?
- How do we make meaning in small or mundane ways that are replicable or possible to emulate in space travel?
- What are simple and replicable extensions of life through mechanisms like the “hug machine” or storage trees?
We encourage proposals that connect to themes related to artificial life, simulated sci-fi worlds, and any threads related to Arakawa and Gins.
Recommended links, texts, and references:
https://www.reversibledestiny.org/architectural-body
https://www.reversibledestiny.org
https://www.sacral.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Acceptances will be sent by Friday, March 22, 2024.
Select authors/creators will be invited to present their proposals in person at the Spring 2024 CCAM Ultra Space Symposium on Friday, April 4 and 5, 2024. This can be in the format of a reading, visual slideshow presentation, or small performance. Each presenter will have 10 minutes to present.