In an area afflicted with multifaceted conflicts, art can become an agent for dialogue, an agent for resolution, or it can get itself involved in the clash.

The 2nd edition of the POM Conference on Art/Conflict, POM Beirut 2019 will be hosted by the Institute of Visual Communication (IVC) at the International University (IU) – Beirut campus, Lebanon, June 11-14, 2019.

The POM – Politics of The Machines is a conference series founded by Laura Beloff, ITU Copenhagen, and Morten Søndergaard, AAU Aalborg, Denmark.
POM Beirut 2019 is organized by the IVC under the Fine Arts & Design Department in collaboration with the Communication Arts and the Computer Science departments.

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.

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.

The conference will also encompass few more technical approaches: some tracks may focus on technology employment and conflict, be it armed conflict or conflict provoked by art, the effects of the constant monitoring, surveillance and how we dwell in the panopticon. How today’s simulations reflect what is actual and how technology, at this level creates or allows for error, failure and risk. POM will also cover the need to problematize certain aspects of teleworking, telemarketing and tele-surveillance and seek to understand the affinity of technology, violence and power relations.