KONF: Virtual Worlds, Bochum (21.-23.06.2023)

Virtual Worlds (21.-23.06.2023, Bochum)

First Annual Conference of the CRC 1567 Virtual Lifeworlds (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

Virtuality has become commonplace. It is a driving force for social and cultural transformations, as the pandemic has demonstrated. Virtuality has become so differentiated in its manifestations that it can be decoupled from the nimbus of the special and observed in its references to the life-world. This status raises the question of how current discussions about virtuality relate to the debates about virtual reality in the 1990s and how we can talk about virtuality today – with the changed conditions of its normalization in mind. It is necessary to detach the concept of virtuality from its rigid opposition to reality in order to circumvent the concomitant charges of the virtual as the extraordinary, other-worldly, and unreal. How such a contemporary concept of virtual worlds could look like is explored by the first annual conference of the Collaborative Research Centre 1567 Virtual Lifeworlds. In order to arrive at a different concept appropriate to current developments, we want to discuss what role virtuality currently plays in literary studies, history, art history, and media studies. The focus will be on the connection between the concept of virtuality and the concept of the world. It is precisely this interconnection that raises a number of fundamental questions in the humanities, such as the concepts of representation, plurality, relationality, and interactivity. Starting from the disciplinary debates, the conference promotes an exchange between the very different expectations towards the concept of virtuality in order to speculate together – and with the impetus of collective work – on the future of virtuality. Five topics are at the core of the conference: "The Counterfactual", "In the Making", "Worlding", "Plurality" and "Experimenting".

Please register to participate (presence/Zoom): https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/de/b/623bc5b1f2de37377eb759c21d4d1b1d-227023

Location of the conference: Kunstmuseum Bochum | Kortumstraße 147 | 44787 Bochum

Location of the optional program: Situation Kunst | Museum unter Tage | Nevelstraße 29D | 44797 Bochum

Organisation: Natalie Binczek | Ina Bolinski | Patrizia Breil | Ida Brückner | Christian Bunnenberg | Lena Ciochon | Robert Dörre | Manischa Eichwalder | Christoph Engemann | Laura Göbl | Ann-Carolyn Hartwig | Klaus Oschema | Julia Reich | Felix Rissel | Armin Schäfer | Isabel Schmiedel | Florian Sprenger | Annette Urban | Manuel van der Veen | Suzette van Haare

Website: https://www.sfb1567.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/blog-post/first-annual-conference-virtual-worlds-21-23-06-2023

Program:

Wednesday

14.00

Optional Programm

Visit to the exhibition Diving into Art with a guided tour | Museum unter Tage | Situation Kunst | Schloßpark Weitmar | Nevelstraße 29D | 44797 Bochum

15.00 and 16.00

Bus transfer to the Kunstmuseum

Departure: Museum unter Tage | Stops at the main train station (Bochum Hbf) and at the Kunstmuseum Bochum

17.00 - 17.30

Welcome and Introduction

Stefan Rieger (Bochum)

17.30 - 19.00

Panel: Plurality (Project A03)

Yuk Hui (Hong Kong): Technologies of Co-Existence. Beyond the Organismic Metaphor, or Philosophy after Cybernetics

Orit Halpern (Dresden): Planetary Intelligence

19.00

Conference Buffet Dinner

All registered guests, participants and CRC-Members

Thursday

09.30 - 11.00

Panel: The Counterfactual (Project B02)

Steffen Patzold (Tübingen) | Tobias Winnerling (Düsseldorf) | Maria Courtial (Darmstadt): Impulses on virtuality and history – between immersion and the counterfactual

11.00 - 11.30

Coffee Break

11.30 - 13.00

Panel: In the Making (Project B01)

Anja Lemke (Köln): Possible worlds – Leibniz and the novel around 1800

Elisabeth Strowick (New York): "[...] oh, just think of all that could happen." Kafka's Burrow in the Making

13.00 - 14.00

Lunch Break

14.00 - 15.30

Panel: Experimenting (Early Career Forum)

Kelsie Acton | Jarah Moesch | Hannah Wong:

Critical Design Lab: Disability Community and Culture at a Distance

15.30 - 16.00

Coffee Break

16.00 - 18.00

Speakdating

All interested guests, participants and CRC-Members

Friday

09.30 - 11.00

Panel: Worlding (Project C03)

Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás (Karlsruhe): "What never was but might yet have been". Thoughts on the virtual condition on the basis of the project Beyond Matter

Andrea Pinotti (Mailand): VR and the World of the Other. Dark and Bright Sides of Immersive Empathy

Tina Sauerländer (Berlin): World Building in Virtual Reality Art. Home of the Brain (1991/2) by Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauß and Aporia (2019) by Patricia Detmering in dialogue

11.00 - 12.00

Wrap-Up

12.00 - 13.00

Bits & Pretzels