Track 02
Terrorism machines:
Art production, Sociopolitical implications.

Track chairs Afif Arabi (International University of Beirut), Zena Meskaoui (Lebanese American University)

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.

What are the mechanisms of the terrorist groups? How they function politically and socially? How did they use new media technologies in creating an image of manipulation? What kind of arts did they produce and how was it manifested? What kind of art also erupted as an anti-terror movement against war and violence in general? How art was a fighter for human rights and political freedom?

Papers under this topic would explore the histories, methodologies and art practices of the group and state-sponsored terror, or of the independent artist on the opposite side. Art production within the frame of its sociopolitical and cultural implications, art hi/stories that includes storytelling,  historiography, periodization, social history in the Arab context beside the usual issues of selection, exclusion, and meta-narratives.

POM Beirut Tracks

(based on the call for topics)

Based on the first call for topics, the call is now open for individual submissions within the following tracks:

01.Track: Arab revolutions: Refugees, Communication technology, Mobile connectivity.
02.Track: Terrorism machines: Art production, Sociopolitical implications.
03.Track: Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0): Art, Cyberphysics, Automated creativity.
04.Track: The Battlefield of Vision: Perceptions of War and Wars on Perception.
05.Track: Internet of things: Dystopian Artificial Intelligence, Black Boxes.
06.Track: Living machines: Wars within living organisms.
07.Track: Artificial intelligence for art AIA: Computational creativity, Neural networks, Simulating human activity.
08.Track: Permanent Telesurveillance: Privacy, data protection, panopticon.
09.Track: The Politics of Evidence: Refugees, Frictions, Sound-representation.
10.Track: Body-politics of the machines: Troubles WITH/IN/OUT art, body, perception, politics, and technology.
11.Track: The Ecosystem Analogy: Machinery of Nature, Borrowed landscapes, Anthropology of the near.

Submission information

last updated January 8th, 2019

Notification of acceptance will be announced by the end of March 2019.

Individual proposals should consist of a 300-word abstract.

All submissions will be reviewed, according to the highest international academic standards.

Submitters should also upload a short bio file, no longer than a ½ page per person.

Please note that there will be a conference fee payable by all participants and delegates of the conference (Fees and packages will be announced in January 2019).

POM Beirut 2019 committees

last updated January 8th, 2019

POM Series executive committee
Dr. Morten SØNDERGAARD and Dr. Laura BELOFF.

POM Beirut 2019 Steering Committee
Dr. Morten SØNDERGAARD, Dr. Laura BELOFF, Dr. Hassan CHOUBASSI, Mr. Joe ELIAS, and Mrs. Sahar CHARARA.

POM Beirut 2019 Organizing Committee
Dr. Hassan CHOUBASSI, Mr. Joe ELIAS, Mrs. Sahar CHARARA, Dr. Fadi YAMMOUT, Dr. Walid RAAD, Ms. Fatima ABOU NASSIF, and Mr. Tarek Mourad.