“We are all in this together” – Connectivity and Community in Isolation
ASCA Workshop 2021, 23-25 June 2021, (Wed to Fri).
Organizers: Jori Snels and Lok Yee Wong
As our global crisis continues, it seems that the social order and our sense of self is changing. We celebrate family birthdays via Skype, demonstrate for social justice on Instagram, and visit art exhibitions in Animal Crossing; meanwhile, we are condemned to living twenty-four hours a day with our partners, roommates or alone, in a home turned office, habituated to uncertainty and fear. Through this experience, we have become keenly aware of both digital technologies’ previously untapped potentialities for connecting us and their seemingly unbridgeable boundaries; we are learning to live in and with entrapment, experiencing both unprecedented distance and closeness.
How can we mourn, how can we protest, how can we engage deeply, when we cannot show up with our bodies, when we cannot step out of our homes? As David Harvey stated in ‘We need a collective response to the collective dilemma of coronavirus’: “I am in a frustrating position of personal isolation, at a moment when the time calls for collective forms of action.”
We want to use this moment to start thinking about how to overcome or reconfigure distancing and isolation from the perspective of embodied connectivity and the embodiment of connectivity. Bennett and Segerberg’s (2012) studies on social connectivity shed insightful light on people’s civic and political participation with digital media as organizing agents. In today’s world, apart from mass protests, connectivity pervades our everyday practices. More than a logic to organize and coordinate online actions, it is increasingly intertwined with our offline world, including our affectivity and bodily experiences. As Van Dijck has stated (2013), the layer of platforms influences human interaction on an individual and a community level, as well as on a larger societal level, as online and offline worlds are increasingly interpenetrating. How does embodiment, in its entanglement with connectivity, prompt us to rethink ourselves and our societies for the future ‘new normal’?
In the 2021 ASCA workshop, we seek to interrogate the notions of connectivity and community in all facets of society in order to reimagine power structures, technological infrastructures, and social systems, and to explore what we may learn from the creative forms of embodied connectivity and embodiment of connectivity we encounter as we move into the future.
Keynote speakers
Prof. dr. Lance Bennett, University of Washington
Dr. Alexandra Segerberg, Uppsala University
Prof. dr. Iris van der Tuin, Utrecht University
Prof. dr. Sally Wyatt, Maastricht University
Artistic interventions
Workshop
Interpersonal Fictions and Imagined Choreographies by Sabrina Huth & Ilana Reynolds
Film screenings
The Balcony and Our Dreams by Aylin Kuryel
The Wangs by Bo Wang
Creative talk
When in Doubt, Take a Walk by Sampson Wong
Timetable
Day 1: Wednesday 23 June 2021
| 12:30-13:00 | Opening Address Prof. Esther Peeren (University of Amsterdam) |
| 13:00-14:00 | Keynote Lecture Connectivity and Community in Isolation: Technology, Creativity and Embodiment Prof. Lance Bennett (University of Washington) & Dr. Alexandra Segerberg (Uppsala University) |
| 14:00-14:15 | Break |
| 14:15-16:00 | Panel Presentations Panel 1 Continuous Screen Culture Panel 2 The Online, Emptied, and Connective Cultural Communities Panel 3 Online Affective Activism |
| 16:00-16:15 | Break |
| 16:15-17:00 | Artistic Intervention Workshop Interpersonal Fictions and Imagined Choreographies Sabrina Huth & Ilana Reynolds |
Day 2: Thursday 24 June 2021
| 13:00-14:00 | Keynote Lecture Title tba Prof. Iris van der Tuin (Utrecht University) |
| 14:00-14:15 | Break |
| 14:15-16:00 | Panel Presentations Panel 4 We Are Not All Human Panel 5 To Make Our (Digital) Histories Panel 6 Activism without Place |
| 16:00-16:15 | Break |
| 16:15-17:00 | Artistic Intervention Film Screening Dr. Aylin Kuryel: The Balcony and Our Dreams Bo Wang: The Wangs |
Day 3: Friday 25 June 2021
| 13:00-14:00 | Artistic Intervention Creative Talk: When in Doubt, Take a Walk Sampson Wong |
| 14:00-14:15 | Break |
| 14:15-15:45 | Panel Presentations Panel 7 Sonic Connections with Isolations Panel 8 Togetherness in Arts and Literature Panel 9 Zooming into Beauty, Intimacy, and Bodies |
| 15:45-17:00 | Break |
| 16:00-17:00 | Keynote Lecture Life in Corona Times: Making Sense with Words, Making Data of Senses Prof. Sally Wyatt (Maastricht University) |
The 2021 ASCA International Workshop is organized by Lok Yee Wong (yveswly@gmail.com) and Jori Snels (j.snels@uva.nl).