Latest News

Last updated March 7th, 2019

Call for abstracts closed

Submitted abstracts are now in the review process. Accepted papers should be announced during the first week of April.

POM Beirut proceedings

POM Beirut 2019 proceedings will be published at the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT (eWic platform).

Call for abstracts update

POM Beirut 2019 Call for Abstracts is now extended. The new deadline is Friday, March 15th, 2019.

Call for abstracts

POM Beirut 2019 committee has reviewed all submitted topics and generated 11 tracks in total. the Call for Abstracts is now open.

Speakers

Keynotes / Screening 

Keynote
Soh Yeong Roh

How I stumbled into Neotopia

12.06.2019 | 19.00
International University of Beirut

Keynote
Hubertus von Amelunxen

Art and Barbarism

13.06.2019 | 19.00
Orient-Institut Beirut

Film screening / Talk
Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow

14.06.2019 | 19.00
International University of Beirut

Politics of the Machines | Beirut 2019 | Art/Conflict | 11-14 June 2019

Track 01: Arab Revolutions

Refugees, Communication technology, Mobile connectivity.

The implication of media augmentation within the context of the Arab revolutions, how the image of media augmentation continues to amass the dreads and worries of the modernist when concerned with industrial technologies of production? It exemplifies yet another burden on the masses in the economy, consumption, and psychological manipulation, in dumbing down and in political oppression, until its explosion physically and violently in the Arab world in what is called the “Arab Spring”.

Track 02: Terrorism machines

Art production, Sociopolitical implications.

The terrorist groups that sprout just after the burst of the revolt of the population in several Arab countries drifted the revolutionary act away from its goals into radical ideologies with specified agendas controlled and manipulated by different international parties that took advantage of the chaos.

Track 03: Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0)

Art, Cyberphysics, Automated creativity.

New technologies of smart spaces started what is agreed to be called the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” IR 4.0 this has changed ways of lives, work and relationship among people. Because of cyber-physical systems, smart spaces and the Internet of Systems was introduced in industries and workplaces, connect machines and people, visualize chains of production and make autonomous choices.

Track 04: The Battlefield of Vision

Perceptions of War and Wars on Perception.

The US military strategy of ‘Rapid Dominance’ summarises its aim as being ‘to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fight or re… through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe… [to] paralyze or so overload an adversary’s perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance…’

Track 05: Internet of things

Dystopian Artificial Intelligence, Black Boxes.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly integrated with the daily life real world. It is playing an essential role in the advancement of living spaces from smart buildings to smart cities. Beyond the current hype, IoT is undoubtedly affecting all sectors at a rapid pace: companies, industries, and the economy. This track looks to address the critical role that IoT plays in the next generation information and communication systems.

Track 06: Living machines

Wars within living organisms.

The idea that living things can be viewed as machines has a long history, stretching back to antiquity. In the 20th century, technological and social developments such as the rise of cybernetics meant biological organisms and the natural environment could be viewed as feedback mechanisms and regulatory systems.

Track 07: Artificial intelligence for art AIA

Computational creativity, Neural networks, Simulating human activity.

We observe the success of artificial neural networks in simulating human performance on a number of tasks: such as image recognition, natural language processing, etc. However, There are limits to state-of-the-art AI that separate it from human-like intelligence.  Today’s AI algorithms are limited in how much previous knowledge they are able to keep through each new training phase and how much they can reuse.

Track 08: Permanent Telesurveillance

Privacy, Data Protection, Panopticon.

The privacy issue has become so much more evident in the computer age. Computer privacy has become a huge concern as we are increasingly using high tech devices and sharing public computers or Internet access points for personal and business purposes. Computer privacy is involved with operating system security, data encryption, access control mechanisms, database protection, network security, and other aspects of protection in computer systems.

Track 09: The Politics of Evidence

Refugees, Frictions, Sound-representation.

The context of representation is essential when turning data about geopolitical conditions such as the current refugee situation, into a knowledge based on which we can relate to and negotiate that situation. We cannot access or work with pure data as it is, we need a representation of it, for instance, statistic tables, graphics, auditory displays or way of making the data appear to our senses.

Track 10: Body-politics of the machines

Troubles WITH/IN/OUT art, Body, Perception, Politics, and Technology.

Within the cross-disciplinary research field art – science – technology, it has been widely remarked how the proliferation of new technologies affects human and non-human bodies in multiple ways—including perceptually, intellectually, culturally, socially, environmentally, ecologically, ethically, and politically.

Track 11: The Ecosystem Analogy

Machinery of Nature, Borrowed landscapes, Anthropology of the near.

In 1981, Eugene Odum and Bernard Patten argued that “ecosystems are cybernetic.”

Cybernetics—the informational control of energy—afforded the universal logic of systemic self-regulation that allegedly spanned nature and machines: “Analogy” between biophysical processes and informationally governed technological systems, “and the willingness to accept [analogy], are the keys to identifying the cybernetic machinery of the ecosystem” (888).

Workshops

Workshop 1
Programming IOT devices

hosted by Fadi Yammout

13.06.2019 | 10.00 – 14.00
International University of Beirut

Workshop 2
Radio Neural Networks

hosted by Juan Regino

14.06.2019 | 10.00 – 15.00
International University of Beirut

Call for Participation

The call for participation falls in two steps:

First call – call for topics

deadline 30 November 2018

Call for topics, subthemes, and tracks of the conference from persons (individuals, institutions or teams). Call for expressions of interest in participation; chairing sessions, reviewing submissions, curating or volunteering their time to other conference work.

We are particularly interested in topics and expressions of interest that address research and ideas that are based on deep analysis / reflections/ perspectives concerning a wide range of art/conflict issues which take into consideration the general conference description and profile. We are also and particularly interested in perspectives, topics, and propositions that we did not (yet) consider.

Please note that we regard all proposals to be expressions of interest to act as reviewers in the second call review process, unless wishes to not review is explicitly requested.

Second call – call for abstracts

deadline 28 February 2019
extended deadline 15 March 2019

Based (mainly) on the proposals and people from the first call.

POM Beirut will comprise four days of conferences with multiple tracks of paper sessions, panels, workshops, exhibitions, and keynote speakers. The tracks will be generated based on a call for topics contextualized under the wide frame of Politics of the Machines, art/conflict. Each track will have several smaller thematic sessions for submission, each chaired by participants selected from the call for topics phase.

Through its suggested tracks, POM Beirut will be addressing subjects related to art practices in relation to conflicts and will be questioning several topics on the politics of the machines, and art production in the context of conflicts.

POM Beirut 2019 – art/conflict

The goal of this edition of POM will be to tackle art practices and the relation of art to the machine. In parallel, it will also focus on understanding the influence and relation between art and conflict. POM will tend to explore the connection between the violence of conflict and violence as a process in art production; the role of conflict in the sociopolitical environment and how it relates to the field of art, science, and technology.

POM Beirut will also try for a better understanding of the engagement and responsiveness of people and organizations to conflict, exploring how art may serve as a tool for resolution and for social inclusion; or as a counter-argument, a tool for conflict and/or violence. Conflict can also be understood as a contradicting force within an artwork, artistic methods or in a subject matter, it may also push for ethical questions or reveal conflict of interests.

Politics of The Machines – conference/series

The POM-conference addresses the politics of the machines and the inescapable technological structures, as well as infrastructures of artistic production in-between human and non-human agency with critical and constructive perspectives. Where and when do experimental and artistic practices work beyond the human: machine and human: non-human dualisms towards biological, hybrid, cybernetic, vibrant, uncanny, overly material, darkly ecological and critical machines? How are we to analyze and contextualize alternative and experimental ontologies and epistemologies of artistic practices beyond transparent dualisms and objectification? How are the relationality and operationality of machines being negotiated into cultural and social ontologies?

Host – the International University of Beirut

Located in the heart of Beirut, the International University campus consists of seven blocks distributed around Mousaitbeh region. In addition to its numerous number of students’ facilities, the campus includes state of the art labs, fully equipped conference rooms, auditoriums, studios, and recreation center.

BCS - The Chartered Institute of IT

POM Beirut 2019 proceedings will be published at the BCS British Computer Society - The Chartered Institute of IT (eWic platform).