Location: University of Sussex

Dates: 1st – 2nd December 2017 (provisional)

This conference is the first of an interdisciplinary series investigating developments in the arts and sciences responding to the manufacturing of being, and will feature keynote presentations from artist Paul Vanouse, Professor Sherryl Vint of UCR, Professor Claire Colebrook of Penn State and Professor Arthur Bradley of Lancaster.

In the wake of the creation of the first stable semisynthetic organism, and numerous other developments in the enhancing and manufacturing of artificial life, thinkers and practitioners across disciplines are seeking to reconceive our understanding of extended being. Significant developments in fields including, and not limited to Biopolitics, Disability Studies, Affect studies, Post humanism and Medical Humanities have contributed to a new understanding of the limits and nature of the human, and of the environment. As the gap between speculation and reality narrows, this conference provides a timely opportunity to survey and reflect on the impact of synthesised lifeforms on our picture of the lifeworld.

Please submit a 250 word abstract and short bio here –https://artificiallives.wordpress.com/contact/

Deadline: 1st September 2017

We welcome papers across disciplines from academics and practitioners, including but by no means limited to the following suggested areas:

•       Artificial intelligence
•       Speculative fiction
•       Representations of virtual and physical prosthetics
•       Representations of disability
•       Genetic and genomic recoding
•       Visual representations of artificial life
•       Posthumanism
•       Chemical manufacturing applied to life forms
•       Critical materialism
•      Impact on Environments and Environmentalisim
•      Rethinking anthropocentrism

If you have any further queries, please email us at artificiallivesproject@gmail.com.