<nettime-ann> [IRC18] Internet Researchers' Conference 2018 - Offline | Propose sessions by Nov 12

[sumandro <mail@ajantriks.net>]

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Dear colleague,

Does being offline necessarily mean being disconnected? Beyond anxieties
such as FOMO, being offline is also seen as disengagement from a certain
milieu of the digital, an impediment to the way life is organised by and
around technologies in general.

Being offline, however, is not the exception, as examples of internet
shutdown and acts of online censorship illustrate the persistence and
often alarming regularity of the offline even for the ‘connected’
sections of the population.

Who is offline, and is it a choice? The global project of bringing
people online has spurred several commendable initiatives in expanding
access to digital devices, networks, and content, and often contentious
ones such as Free Basics / internet.org, which illustrate the
intersectionalities of scale, privilege, and rights that we need to be
mindful of when we imagine the offline.

Further, efforts to prioritise the use of digital technologies for
financial transactions, especially since demonetisation, has led to a
not-so-subtle equalisation of the ‘online economy’ with the ‘formal
economy’; thus recognising the offline as the zones of informality,
corruption, and piracy. This contributes to the offline becoming
invisible, and in many cases, illegal, rather than being recognised as a
condition that necessarily informs what it means to be digital.

The experience of the internet for most users is mediated through prior
and ongoing experiences of traditional media, and through cultural
metaphors and cognitive frames that transcend more practical registers
such as consumption and facilitation. How do we approach, study, and
represent this disembodied internet – devoid of its hypertext,
platforms, devices, it's nuts and bolts, but still tangible through
engagement in myriad, personal, and often indiscernible ways.

For the third edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC18),
we invite participants to critically discuss the *offline*.

We invite sessions that present or propose academic, applied, or
creative works that explore social, economic, cultural, political,
infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the *offline*.

Please submit sessions proposals by Sunday, *November 12* (extended
deadline).

Conference details can be found here:
https://cis-india.org/raw/irc18-offline-call.

Conference poster can be found here:
https://cis-india.org/raw/irc18-offline-call/image/image_view_fullscreen.

Please write to us at *raw@cis-india.org* for any questions regarding
the conference.

We will be grateful if you can please share this invitation among your
colleagues and networks.

Warm regards,

Researchers at Work
The Centre for Internet and Society
http://cis-india.org/
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