CALL FOR PAPERS: Bodies in Digital Transition
Transcultural Dialogues on
Digital Intimacies and Artistic Practices
A Student Research Conference Supported by the CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership
2–5 September 2025 at Goldsmiths, University of London
In collaboration with the CHASE DiSCo network
KEY SPEAKERS
Dr Nicola Liberati, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Dr Tomoko Tamari, Reader in Sociology, Goldsmiths University
Dr Dan Strutt, Reader in Media, Communications and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths University
WORKSHOP LEADERS
Stelarc, performance artist
Keiichiro Shibuya, composer, musician, and artist
Bodies in Digital Transition is a three-day transdisciplinary conference that brings together scholars, artists, and technologists to explore contemporary digital intimacies, (dis)embodied virtual experiences, and their transcultural articulations. We invite critical dialogues and creative interventions across disciplines, cultures, and methodologies in times where digital technologies increasingly mediate our experiences of the body, intimacy, and cultural identity.
As Sherry Turkle (2011) wrote, intimacy is reshaped, and often diminished, by technology: when effortless connection is mistaken for genuine closeness, digital intimacy can slip into isolation; constant connectivity gives rise to anxiety and (paradoxically) new forms of disconnection. As such, we invite criticism of how intimacy within new media and technologies may serve archaic power structures that feed patriarchal discourses and gender, class divides through new forms of oppression and exploitation. However, we also invoke Donna Haraway’s cyborg myth (1985), once a symbol of resistance to dominant power structures. We want to revisit and probe the cyborg, which has arguably been absorbed by the systems it sought to destabilise and explore the glitched, unruly, unprogrammable body that offers a more radical challenge to hegemonic control systems (Legacy Russell 2013).
Avoiding simplistic binary arguments of digital intimacies as either dystopian or utopian we encourage careful consideration of digital entanglements which may be explored through posthuman futures aligned with thinkers such as Rosi Braidotti, who dreams of bodies that embrace technology while remaining grounded in their finitude and material complexity. These are not disembodied data-phantasms but living, ethical bodies, irreducible to code or mechanical functions, and resistant to instrumentalisation. In this spirit, we want to hear echoes of Hava Tirosh-Samuelson’s call to reject transhumanist fantasies of overcoming death, and instead use technology to dignify both life and death.
Crucially, we believe that engaging with diverse cultural frameworks is essential to rethinking the digital/virtual (and non) body. We therefore especially welcome contributions that examine East Asian philosophies and practices, whether resonant with or in critical tension with Euro-American technological paradigms. We seek to rediscover spiritual and ontological insights often marginalised since the rise of the Enlightenment rationalism and the persistent mind–body divide, examining how these insights might offer resistance against techno-capitalist modernity. Finally, we understand practice as a site of resistance and experimentation: a space where glitched bodies, coded identities, and entangled intimacies can be reimagined beyond normative constraints. We are especially interested in artistic works that explore the body as interface, the politics of visibility and presence, and the aesthetic articulation of technologically mediated life.
We invite you to send your proposals that engage with, but are not limited to, the following questions and themes
How are VR, AI, and robotic technologies reshaping our understanding of embodiment, intimacy, and relationality?
How do cultural frameworks influence emerging technologies' adoption, perception, and ethical interpretation?
What insights can East Asian philosophies and practices—such as Daoism and Zen aesthetics—offer to Euro-American posthuman discourses on the body and consciousness?
How are global narratives of love, sex, and intimacy being transformed through technological mediation?
How can performance arts (e.g., dance, robotic performance, body-based digital art) illuminate new dimensions of the body as a mediated, relational, or programmable entity?
What role does speculative and critical design play in imagining and constructing future forms of intimacy and embodiment?
How do postphenomenological and posthumanist theories engage with the evolving role of the non-human in intimate, emotional, or ethical relationships?
Can transcultural perspectives generate alternative ethical frameworks for navigating digital intimacy and technologically mediated desire?
Submission Guidelines
Abstracts (150-250 words) for the following paper categories are welcome:
Full papers (20-minute presentation with 10-minute Q&A)
Posters
You may also submit proposals for three-person panels organised around a particular medium. Each panel proposal must include three abstracts (one of which must be by the panel organiser) and list every panellist, along with their email addresses, on the panel description. Individual abstract submissions will be assigned by the conference hosts to an appropriate panel. We primarily seek transdisciplinary/transcultural perspectives and a rich diversity of theoretical, methodological and philosophical approaches to probe digital and virtual media. We warmly welcome creative approaches and alternative presentation formats. Feel free to stretch the boundaries in unexpected ways! In the spirit of fostering an inclusive and dynamic academic space, we invite submissions from all CHASE-funded researchers, alumni, including all doctoral students at Goldsmiths, SOAS University of London and the University of East Anglia. We also welcome graduate students in the process of approaching PhD studies, but please be aware that priority will be given to PhD researchers.
Deadline for abstracts: 31st July 2025
Notification of acceptance: 13th August 2025
Organising Committee and Contacts
Any questions regarding the conference and submissions may be directed to:
Alessandro Caruana - a.caruana@gold.ac.uk / alessandro.caruana.publ@gmail.com
April Wei-West - 668211@soas.ac.uk
Kareena Gianani - k.gianani@uea.ac.uk
