ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art), an international conference and festival lasting two weeks, “situated at the critical intersection of art and technology,” will be held in San Jose, CA, August 5-13 2006. ISEA and ZerOne are issuing a Call for Proposals.

ISEA spans a broad range of work from critical theory and application papers, interactive demonstrations, videos, installations, performances, and emerging music to name a few. In 2006 ISEA will feature four themes: Interactive City, Community Domain, Transvergence, and Pacific Rim. Each theme will of course manifest itself at ISEA in the form of papers, demos, performances, etc. Each of these topics will also feature a 2 day event immediately preceding ISEA to further focus the topic and go into more critical depth. This announcement is for the early call for proposals within the scope of the Interactive City.

The city has always been a site of transformation: of lives, of populations, even of civilizations. With the rise of the mega city, however; with theadvent of 24/7 rush hours; with the inexorable conversion of public space into commercial space; with the rise of surveillance; with the computer-assisted precision of redlining; with the viral advance of the xenophobic, the contemporary city is weighted down. We dream of something more. Not something planned and canned, like another confectionary spectacle. Something that can respond to our dreams. Something that will transform with us, not just perform change on us, like an operation.

The Interactive City seeks urban-scale projects for which the city is not merely a palimpsest of our desires but an active participant in their formation. From dynamic architectural skins to composite sky portraits to walking in someone else’s shoes to geocaches of urban lore to hybrid games with a global audience, projects for the Interactive City should transform the “new” technologies of mobile and pervasive computing, ubiquitous networks, and locative media into experiences that matter.

We are initiating an early Call for Proposals that manifest but are not limited to the spectrum of ideas below. Interactive City proposals should embrace aspects of the city of San José and/or the surrounding metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area specifically. We are seeking projects that are large in scale, require advanced or special planning and/or permissions, or projects seeking early review.