Acoustic Space, special issue of on Trans-Culture Mapping http://rixc.lv http://locative.net ===================================== The RIXC Centre for New Media Culture seeks manuscripts for its upcoming Acoustic Space journal, to be published for the 7th international Art+Communication festival in Riga Latvia, October 1-3 2004. Now in its 5th edition, the Acoustic Space print journal, is a forum for net-radio and new media artists broadly interested in the idea of making visible the invisible. This year's issue, Trans-Culture Mapping, will focus, in the context of European expansion, on ideas of locality, cartography and the politics of open-systems. ===================================== The ability to visualize a space relates to its domination where borders are maintained by a legions of state cartographers, enforcing hierarchical regimes of power from the level of the biological to the geopolitical. Against the US-led 'coalition of the willing' of which Latvia counts itself a part --informed, as it is, by the US Strategic Command's objective of "Full Spectrum Dominance" (that seeks the unilateral total domination of land, sea, air, cyberspace and outer space)- this publication is interested in projects that re-appropriate mapping as a means cultural expression. The publication seeks to offer a space of exchange for grassroots activists and new media practitioners who are critically exploring ideas of locality, in response to the continental European (and global) process of "normalization". ===================================== Sub-themes Locative Media Governments and corporations worldwide are constructing a geo-rectified real-time digital-double of earth-systems, which, with the advent of the mobile Internet and the ever increasing ubiquity of location-sensing technologies, allow for urban space to become conceived of as a site for digital media and, potentially, emergent social organization. Yet, beneath the manifold promise of collaborative cartography, is the harsh reality of 'total information awareness'. Can locative media escape its own axiomatic system? Spectrum Ecology Advances in wireless internet technology are changing not only how people connect to the internet but also how they approach the wireless spectrum itself. This section seeks to map how ideas of use and ownership are being analyzed and reconsidered in this environment. Tactical Cartography Social softwares have become a means of mobilizing people without having to go to the "Media" to convey a message. Problems, however, persist in making the leap into more mainstream circuits of power. How can maps be used both to help legitimize certain "fringe" Internet-debates and throw light on the nature of multinational capitalism? Endocolonization In the context of a "War on Terror", global borders are being mapped _within_, in a battle for "hearts and minds". While we may celebrate aspects of European integration, smaller States must also be cautious of Âthe wholesale adoption of various monoculturing techniques that threaten their local diversities.  How does "the local" assert itself while at the same time avoiding becoming reactionary and fundamentalist. ===================================== Proposals and inquiries regarding submissions should be made to Marc Tuters <mt (at) x-i.net> and Rasa Smite <rasa (at) re-lab.net> We encourage you to submit documents of various lengths an forms, so long as they related to one of the sub-themes and display an internal consistence. While we ask for documents in English we actively encourage submissions from non-Anglophones, especially Eastern Europeans. Please submit documents as RTF's and any images separately in a high resolution format. Deadline for final, full paper submissions: August 1st