Theory in Action, the journal of the Transformative Studies Institute (quarterly publication print ISSN: 1937-0229 electronic ISSN: 1937-0237), is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal, whose scope ranges from the local to the global. Its aim is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and the discussion of current research (qualitative and quantitative) on the interconnections between theory and action aimed at promoting social justice broadly defined.

The journal editorial board does not privilege any particular theoretical tradition or approach and there are no word or page limits for its articles. TIA publishes papers that connect academic scholarship with activism, what R.K. Merton calls ‘theories of the middle range.’ TIA values radical and unconventional ideas, expressed in different styles, whether academic or journalistic. Continue reading

404 International Festival of Art & Technology :: Open Call — Deadline: February 28, 2012. Continue reading

Theory Beyond Codes: Haptics, Mobile Handhelds, and other “Novel” Devices: The Tactile Unconscious of Reading across Old and New Media by Rachel Lee :: CTHEORY: Theory, Thechnology, Culure VOL 35, NOS 1-2 :: Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker.

I. Don’t Press. Just Touch

In a 2007 news article in the ~Korea Times~ covering the then innovative technology of the capacitance v. resistive (i.e., pressure sensitive) touch screens, Cho Jin-Seo uses the lead-in “Don’t Press. Just Touch” to capture the habituated finger knowledge one would have to incorporate in order to switch from the more familiar interface of ATM’s and cashier check-out stands to the newer interfaces of mobile devices. [1] Continue reading

Into the Diagram: Two Public Lectures by Brian Massumi and Erin Manning :: December 13, 2011: 6:00 pm :: Artspace, 43-51 Cowper Wharf Road, Woollomooloo, Sydney.

Artspace and National Institute of Experimental Arts, CoFA present two lectures by Brian Massumi and Erin Manning, leading philosophers and practitioners of movement, affect and relationality. Together their lectures Animality and Abstraction (Massumi) and The Dance of Attention (Manning) explore the virtual, abstract and powerful dimensions of diagrams. Continue reading

Deleuze and Computers – a lecture by Alexander R. Galloway :: W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst, December 2, 2011. Continue reading

Minima Moralia Redux is a selective remix by Eduardo Navas of Theodor Adorno’s Minima Moralia. Starting on October 16, 2011, an entry a week will be rewritten until the 153 aphorisms of Minima Moralia become part of the blog.

Theodor Adorno’s aphorisms are carefully analyzed and reinterpreted in order to explore the principles of the selective remix, often found in music and video. The selective remix consists of adding to or subtracting material from a pre-existing source. Continue reading

The Nonhuman Turn in 21st Century Studies :: May 3-5, 2012 :: Center for 21st Century Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee :: Call for Papers - Deadline: December 19, 2011.

Invited speakers include Jane Bennett, Ian Bogost, Bill Brown, Wendy Chun, Mark Hansen, Erin Manning, Brian Massumi, and Tim Morton.

This conference takes up the “nonhuman turn” that has been emerging in the arts, humanities, and social sciences over the past few decades. Intensifying in the 21st century, this nonhuman turn can be traced to a variety of different intellectual and theoretical developments from the last decades of the 20th century: Continue reading

Facing Forward: Art & Theory from a Future Perspective (lecture series) :: December 2011 – April 2012 :: Oude Lutherse Kerk, Spui 411 (corner Spui), Amsterdam.

Following the successful lecture series and publications Right About Now: Art & Theory in the 1990s and Now is the Time: Art & Theory in the 21st Century, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, de Appel arts centre, W139, the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, and Metropolis M, jointly present a new series of lectures and debates: Facing Forward: Art & Theory from a Future Perspective. Continue reading

On nettime, Timothy Druckrey wrote: No doubt lengthy paeans will be forthcoming from the Kittler scholars. They will be, of course, well deserved for a thinker whose work traversed so many spheres. For us in the media, Kittler’s work has been an indispensable source of rigor and insight. Back in 1987, I read the first chapter of Gramophone, Film, Typewriter in the journal October. After that, his name surfaced in many sources and I read everything I could find with voracious interest. He was regularly in the media festivals and his intense presence was a stark challenge to the kind of idiosyncratic history that was/is still so prevalent in the media sphere. Continue reading

Semblance and Event: Activist Philosophy and the Occurrent Arts by Brian Massumi, MIT Press:

Events are always passing; to experience an event is to experience the passing. But how do we perceive an experience that encompasses the just-was and the is-about-to-be as much as what is actually present? In Semblance and Event, Brian Massumi, drawing on the work of William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and others, develops the concept of “semblance” as a way to approach this question.

It is, he argues, a question of abstraction, not as the opposite of the concrete but as a dimension of it: “lived abstraction.” A semblance is a lived abstraction. Massumi uses the category of the semblance to investigate practices of art that are relational and event-oriented — variously known as interactive art, ephemeral art, performance art, art intervention — which he refers to collectively as the “occurrent arts.” Continue reading