RE:PRE:SENT
Abstract
The 8th issue of V!RUS journal proposes a reflection on Represent. The word comes from the Latin repraesentare and contains two prefixes. The first is re-, which means 'backwards', suggesting a reiteration of something, and the second is prae-, which means 'ahead', 'before then', and refers to something that would still be to come. The two prefixes are linked to the verb sedere, meaning 'to seat', 'to sit', designating what is established, defined. From this standpoint, RE:PRE:SENT involves at the same time a gesture related to a pre-existence, to what had or to what has already been (re-), associates it with a look at what is not yet, to what might be (pre-), and transforms the act of definition, of settlement, of permanence (sedere).
The three basic meanings that William of Ockham assigns to represent also help us to anticipate possible approaches to this theme: 1. the mediation itself, as “that through which something is known”; 2. the processes of representing as a possibility to “know something, after whose knowledge another thing is known”; and 3. the status of object that the representation may assume related to the represented object, able to “cause knowledge in the same way as the object causes knowledge”.
We therefore propose that the subject RE:PRE:SENT encompasses diverse temporalities and meanings, fostering transdisciplinary thinking coming from many knowledge areas. Will be welcome theoretical, conceptual and historical reflections, as well as records of performances, experiences and practices of artistic and audio-visual works, including interventions in the areas of architecture, urbanism, design, communication and information technology, whether in concrete, virtual or hybrid spaces, and specific studies on software and digital interfaces and their applications, prioritizing those for social and community use. Likewise, we hope to complexify this reflection with contributions from the social sciences, education, philosophy, psychology and mathematics, among other areas, as well as from studies on public policies and social-environmental sustainability.
We are interested in papers that discuss RE:PRE:SENT from various inputs, such as communication, reading and creation processes, narratives study and implementation, rather using digital platforms mediation, tangible or not, on one hand; processes of approaching distant realities, using representation as a mean to bring closer what is far away – in many ways –, exploring concepts such as multiculturalism and transdisciplinarity, and the potentialities of the so called online social networks in these approaches, as well as the very notion of having as reference thoughts and works produced in cultures geographically or socially distant, on the other hand. Relating the topic to cybernetic studies and of complex thinking, we understand re:pre:sent as an observation process even able to modify the represented object, and as the relationship between representation, the represented object and its observers, constituting parts of a system.
Beyond texts and static images, will be welcome musical pieces and testimonials in audio files, architecture, urbanism and design projects and the critical reflection on their conception, short video and films, slideshows, animations, interviews, considering Nomads.usp interest in exploring possibilities of using digital media for science diffusion.
Contributions will be received through the journal’s website until September 17th, 2012, according to the guidelines for authors, available at www.nomads.usp.br/virus/submissao_submission.php.
IMPORTANT DATES:
_August 2011: first call for contributions
_September 26th 2012: deadline for receiving of contributions
_October 15th 2012: sending notices of acceptance and requests for adjustments to the authors
_October 29th 2012: deadline for authors' adjustments
_November 19th 2012: translations review by the authors
_November 26th 2012: deadline for receiving authors translations approvals
_December 2012: release of V!RUS 08
