2026 Bulletin Board and Call Sheet

Comments

• markcmarino

  January 12

  CFP: Breaking the Code. Deadline: January 15

  Breaking the Code: Hacktivating Non-Normative Algorithms
  International Conference – 18–19 June 2026
  Theme 2026: Error 403 – Critical Refusals
  Porto, Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FLUP) + online
  An output of the BRKCODE Project (DARIAH-EU), in partnership with the Electronic Literature Organization

  What does it mean to err – to glitch, to refuse efficiency, to disobey system logics?

  The inaugural conference of Breaking the Code: Hacktivating Non-Normative Algorithms adopts the theme Error 403 – Critical Refusals, inviting scholars, artists, and those working across research and artistic practice to treat error as a critical condition, to read glitch as resistant gesture, and to approach refusal and deviation as an opening to new epistemologies and creative forms.
• markcmarino

  January 19

  Note that Breaking the Code has extended its deadline till the end of the January!
• markcmarino

  January 19

  Also, don't miss your chance to submit to the 2026 conference of the Electronic Literature Organization which loves to feature code art and CCS readings of works of digital literature. The current deadline is Jan 30. Here's a snippet and the link to the full call.

  Theme
  The theme of ELOnline 2026 is (Un)Supervised. One interpretation of this might regard a kind of LLM development, but we also consider perennial questions in the field around who is watching, who is reading, and who is learning about Electronic Literature, especially E-Lit cultures outside this institution. We particularly encourage submissions that center on computational research questions and generativity and the university as spaces where community and computational creativity are contested by many actors and parties. We invite attention to both un-institutioning (such as the decoupling of the federal government from research initiatives at public and international institutions) and the adaptive, critical, reflexive processes of institution-building, maintenance, and reinforcement (initiatives, pedagogies, technologies, labs, partnerships, research organizations, platforms, large-language-models, publications, etc.).

  As part of this theme, we invite submissions in celebration of the E-Literary arts across all formats exploring the trajectories of the web, academia, and social platforms as sites of electronic literature making, community care, and movement.
• Becky

  February 5

  Call for Papers: Decoding Hall

  June 12, 2026

  The Exchange, University of Birmingham

  More than 50 years after Stuart Hall authored his discussion paper, ‘Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse’ (1973), the model he proposed remains a touchstone for media and communications scholars. Yet the media under discussion today is rarely television and, as Hall observed, his model ‘suggests an approach; it opens up new questions. It maps the terrain. But it's a model which has to be worked with and developed and changed’ (Cruz & Lewis, 1989).

  Decoding Hall’ is a one-day symposium celebrating the launch of Hall’s digital archive–drawing on papers held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham–while also inviting reflection on the contemporary relevance of Hall’s model. As Hall’s paper archive is transformed via digital mediation, how might we use ‘Encoding and Decoding’ to map our current digital terrain? Or to approach generative AI technologies critically? How might we have to develop and change Hall’s model? What work must we as scholars do and what insights might emerge?

  This CFP invites contributions that engage with Hall’s work and contemporary media and technology, addressing:

  specific media and technologies: such as AI, social media, or datasets
  topics including: racialised data, global politics, algorithmic bias, or ideology in the production, consumption, representation, and regulation of new media
  methods and approaches, including: digitising and mediating Black archives; using critical data, ethics, critical code, or cultural AI approaches; or the application of cultural studies approaches to the analysis of new media, technologies and practices.
  critical-creative responses to Hall’s digital archive or model (including its own digital mediations).
  Please send a short abstract (200-300 words) outlining your proposed contribution, along with your name and any affiliation to Katy Parsons (k.parsons@bham.ac.uk) by 20 March 2026. We welcome formal papers, demos, posters, and non-traditional formats; we hope to produce a collection of work resulting from the day.

  The symposium is hosted by the Stuart Hall Archive Project at the University of Birmingham, UK. Any questions, please contact Katy Parsons or Rebecca Roach (r.roach@bham.ac.uk).