International Scientific Conference
MEDIA CULTURE: ART, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGIES
Department of Contemporary Art
Art Faculty
Vytautas Magnus University
Kaunas, 12th of April, 2012

The Department of Contemporary Art of the Art Faculty of Vytautas Magnus University together with the Department of Public Communications of the Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy and the Applied Informatics Department of the Faculty of Informatics invites you to participate in the international scientific conference Media Culture: Art, Communication, Technologies.

The concept of media is often used in the contemporary theoretical contexts of art, communication and technologies and investing this concept with different meanings. The field of creative practices related to media has expanded greatly too. New media is used by artists, the specialists of communication and technologies, who change our life by creating virtual environments and various interfaces of communication. Therefore the interdisciplinary research of culture formed by media becomes especially relevant.
The participants of the conference are encouraged to look at the theories and practices of art, communication and modern technologies as related and interacting fields of media culture. The representatives of various scholarly fields are invited to apply different perspectives of analysis to such topical questions as the relation between textual medias and visuality, the relationship between oral and visual narrative, media ecology, interface and communication in the environments of screen, virtual space and 3D reality, its influence to the human identity and life quality, the formation of virtual communities, the production and the spread of popular culture products by means of contemporary medias, the transition of contemporary culture into post-media state, etc.
The conference is intended to discuss not only local processes of media culture and the formation of its theoretical context in Lithuania, but also to critically asses the global field of creative media practice and theory.

The sections of the conference
* Media art (photography, cinema, video art, internet art, sound art, interactive art, the use of new media in performing arts, etc.).
* Media and communication (media convergence, new forms of public communication, communication globalization and mediatization, communication cultures, new media use, new social movements and public engagement, etc.).
* Media technologies (internet technologies, mobile technologies, the visualization of information, data visualization, computer graphics, image manipulation, virtual realities, cloud computing, artificial intellect, etc.)

Program Committe

José Cláudio S. Castanheira (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina - UFSC, Brasil)
Eric Freedman (Michigan State University, USA)
Cristopher Hales (United Kingdom)
Kristina Juraitė (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania)
Raivo Kelomees (Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia)
Ryszard W. Kluszczynski (University of Lodz, Poland)
Tomas Krilavičius (Vytautas Magnus University and Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology, Lithuania)
Ka Lok Man (Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China)
Gintautas Mažeikis (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania)
Tomas Pabedinskas (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania)
Lucio Tommaso De Paolis (University of Salento, Italy)
Rimantas Plungė (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania)
Renata Šukaitytė (Lithuanian Culture Research Institute and Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Lithuania)
Egidijus Vaškevičius (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania)
Daiva Vitkutė-Adžgauskienė (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania)
Indrė Žliobaitė (Bournemouth University, UK)

Steering Committee

Tomas Pabendinskas (chair), t.pabedinskas@mf.vdu.lt
Kristina Juraitė, k.juraite@pmdf.vdu.lt
Tomas Krilavičius, t.krilavicius@if.vdu.lt
Remigijus Venckus, venckusremis@yahoo.com