Intermedial Networks: The Digital Present and Beyond

Submission of proposal opens December 4, 2023.

Deadline for submissions is April 1, 2024.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent out at the latest by April 30, 2024.

Maria Engberg, Malmö University, Sweden

Maria Engberg is docent and an Associate Professor of media technology at Malmö University. During the past five years she has directed the research program Data Society at Malmö University, which focuses on advancing the understanding of the social and cultural impact of digitalization and AI. Her research interests include emerging media technologies, digital reading practices, and multisensory media. Recent publications include the edited volume The Digital Reading Condition (2023, Routledge, with Iben Have and Birgitte Stougaard Pedersen) and Reality Media: Augmented and Virtual Reality (2021, MIT Press, with Jay David Bolter and Blair MacIntyre).

Bernard Geoghegan, Gothenburg University, Sweden and King’s College, UK

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan is a media theorist and historian of technology based in Gothenburg and London. An overarching theme of his research is how “cultural” sciences shape—and are shaped by—digital media.This concern spans his writing on the mutual constitution of cybernetics and the human sciences, ethnicity and AI, and the role of mid-twentieth century military vigilance in the development of multimedia interactivity.  His attention to cultural factors in technical systems also figured in his work as a curator, notably for the Anthropocene and Technosphere projects at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. His book Code: From Information Theory to French Theory examines how liberal technocratic projects, with roots in colonialism, mental health, and industrial capitalism, shaped early conceptions of digital media and cybernetics. It offers a revisionist history of "French Theory" as an effort to come to terms with technical ideas of communications and as a predecessor to the digital humanities. His current book project, Screenscapes: How Graphics Render Territories, draws on infrastructure studies and format studies to offer a radical account of how digital screens produce global space. Bernard received a binational (cotutelle) PhD in media studies from Northwestern and Bauhaus Universities.

Eleni Timpalexi, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, NTLa, Greece

Eleni Timplalexi teaches at the Laboratory NTLab, Department of Communication & Media Studies, NKUA, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens. She holds a post doc in Digital Media and Theatre, Department of Theatre Studies, NKUA, awarded with the IKY Fellowship of Excellence for postgraduate studies in Greece-Siemens Program (2015-16) She completed her PhD in the same department with an IKY PhD scholarship (2010-14). She was a Alexander C. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation Scholar in Theatre Practice (2005-07) and recently, a post doc guest researcher with Linnaeus University Centre for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies and at University of Lund, Sweden.

She also is an awarded playwright, theatre director and artist, currently involved in Magenta Artistic Collaboration and collaborating with the Spatial Media Research Group.

Digital media are no longer new; in the present mature digital condition, they are an integrated, constantly changing part of contemporary media use. However, digital media types, platforms and practices call for more intermedial and multimodal attention. This is especially important as current developments such as artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual and augmented realities (VR, AR) are about to transform communication fundamentally.

The inaugural conference of the Intermedial Society of Intermedial Studies in Cluj in 2013 called for Rethinking Intermediality in the Digital Age. We now explore the topic further to understand communication as grounded on intermedial modalities in a society that increasingly relies on digitized technologies. From an intermedial perspective that explores relations within and between different media, we aim to highlight intermedial intersections regarding how we use, create, and access texts, images and sounds, news, films, music, literature, games, or music.

We ask how a specifically intermedial perspective can develop and add nuance to the understanding of networks, interactions, codes and programming, virtual realities, concepts and processes that we associate with the digital condition but are not restricted to the digital.

How can the intermedial study of media modalities expand to meet the challenges of present and future media ecologies? Can an intermedial approach to the body help us understand the digi-physical intersections in virtual and augmented reality or the fusions of techno- and biosphere? We strive for an understanding of the digital as an integrated part of contemporary media use and consider media in society from different cultural studies perspectives.

We invite scholars from a wide range of disciplines, as well as practitioners from journalism, media production, arts and education, among other fields, to explore past, present and future (inter)medial networks. To understand media as processes, objects, and networks, we also aim to bring together intermedial, multimodal and communication theory perspectives. For the conference, we look forward to papers and presentations on the digitized and the intermedial that include but are not restricted to the following themes (this list is not exhaustive):

• Intermedial and multimodal perspectives on digitalization. How do intermedial and multimodal approaches shed light on digitally borne media types like memes, or digital practices, such as sharing, as well as digital technologies such as VR, AR and AI? What is being digitized, how and why? What is the relationship between digital transformation and previous media revolutions?  
• Media representation of digitalization. How are digital media represented in literature, visual arts, lyrics, film, TV series, and journalism? What kind of intermedial perspectives on the digital are to be found in artistic media use and media production?
• Historical perspectives, or the history of the internet, media archaeology and other perspectives on digital media forms. What kind of protodigital predecessors can we trace for technologies and experiences of the digital age? Do interpretation and knowledge communication change in the age of computation?
• Online interactivity and gamification as they draw attention to the phatic role of communication and the social role of games in general.
• Networks, cyberspaces, metaverses: Intermedial perspectives on the concepts and metaphors of digitization.
• Social and affective media. The emotional/affective turn as it manifests in connections between media and emotional mobilization.
• Sociopolitical aspects. How does digitalization contribute to the formation of society and culture?
• The digitized school. Digitization, intermediality, and networks in education and learning.
• Authenticity and identity in a digitized society. How do virtual realities function across media?

We plan this conference as a stimulating and mainly in-person event; therefore we encourage you to come and join us in the debates. Nevertheless, in case you cannot come, we will accept a limited number of online presentations.

We welcome proposals for individual papers, panels, workshops or practice-based presentations.

INDIVIDUAL PAPERS

Individual papers will be allocated a time slot for 20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for discussion. When submitting your proposal, please make sure to use the compulsory word template for abstracts.

PRE-CONSTITUTED PANELS

In order to ensure the coherence of the panels, we encourage the participants to submit proposals for pre-constituted sessions composed of, e.g., three 20-minute papers.

When submitting your proposal, please make sure to use the compulsory word template for abstracts and include a short presentation (up to 200 words) of the panel as a whole.

WORKSHOPS

We welcome proposals for workshops and other session formats. In general, workshops will promote active participation while exploring new ideas. The duration can be up to 2 hours. If you would like to propose a workshop or another session format, please contact the organisers by email  intermedial-networks@lnu.se.

Please submit your proposal via the conference homepage under the headline “Abstract submission.”    

Submission of proposal opens December 4, 2023.

Deadline for submissions is April 1, 2024.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent out at the latest by April 31, 2024.

The conference organizers at Linnaeus, Lund, and Århus Universities

We welcome proposals for individual papers, panels, workshops or practice-based presentations.

We plan this conference as a stimulating and mainly in-person event; therefore we encourage you to come and join us in the debates. Nevertheless, in case you cannot come, we will accept a limited number of online presentations.

Please submit your proposal via the conference homepage under the headline “Abstract submission”. Please submit an abstract of max 250 words, 3–5 keywords and a short bio of the presenter (150 words max). Make sure to use the compulsory word template for abstracts.  

Please submit your abstract here. Make sure that you use the abstract template that can be downloaded below. Accepted abstracts will be published open access in LnuOpen with the Creative Commons licens CC-BY .

Download abstract template here.

Travel to Växjö

There are a number of different ways to travel to Växjö. You can either take the train to Växjö Central or travel by air to Växjö Småland Airport.

If you travel by train to Växjö you will reach Växjö Central located in the city centre. Travelling by train from Stockholm Central to Växjö Central takes roughly 3.5 hours.

If you instead choose to travel by air, you can choose to travel either from Bromma Stockholm Airport or Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to Växjö Småland Airport. You can also reach Växjö via flight to Copenhagen Airport/Kastrup and connecting direct train to Växjö Central (roughly 2.5 hours).

Travel in Växjö
For travel from Växjö Central or Växjö Småland Airport to Linnaeus University we recommend either bus or taxi.

By bus
When travelling by bus from Växjö Central to Linnaeus University, bus number 3, direction “Universitetet”, is the best option. However, there are also other bus routes that pass by one of the university’s bus stops or bus stops nearby, for instance, route number 1 and 5, which take you to Teleborg Centrum, some 8–10 minutes’ walk from the university’s campus.

Bus number 4 will take you from Växjö Småland Airport to Växjö Central where you can change to bus to get to Linnaeus University.

Bus tickets are purchased either on the bus with a debit card or you can download the travel app “Länstrafiken Kronoberg” and purchase your ticket in the app, which will give you a 10% discount on your ticket. You use your debit card to pay in the app.

Click here to perform a search on Länstrafiken Kronoberg.

By bicycle
In case you prefer a bicycle, many hotels can offer this. It takes roughly 20 minutes with a bicycle from the city centre to Linnaeus University’s campus.

By taxi
Most taxi companies start from Södra Bantorget at World Trade Center which means you can find available taxis here.

By car
There is a relative shortage of parking spaces on campus and all are subject to a charge. Parking spaces are marked on the map below.

Here you will find a map of Linnaeus University in Växjö.

Linnaeus University is a creative and international knowledge environment that promotes curiosity, creativity, companionship and utility. More than 44,000 students are registered at Linnaeus University.

Linnaeus University is located in Växjö and Kalmar and offers 150 degree programmes and 1,300 single-subject courses. Linnaeus University was established in 2010 through a merger between Växjö University and Kalmar University College.

With some 2,100 employees and 44,000 students it is a modern university with Småland as its base and the world as its arena. Studying and working at Linnaeus University involves being part of an environment that is characterised by knowledge and development. Students acquire new knowledge and learn to have a critical approach. Researchers make new discoveries that can bring change to our society. Employees share stories of a workplace with both challenges and opportunities. Linnaeus University is a university where people can reach their full potential.

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