2nd Edition of the International Symposium "Digital Frontiers"

November 18th-19th, 2014, City of Fes (Marocco) 

Symposium organized by

• The Laboratory EA 349 Paragraphe (University of Paris 8 and University of Cergy -Pontoise)
• The Laboratory of Images Arts & Contemporary Art EA 4010 (AIAC,  University Paris 8) and
• The Higher School of Engineering in Applied Sciences (Fes, Morocco)
• With the support of the Laboratory of excellence LABEX Arts- H2H and the Excellence initiative for Innovative Training IDEFI CREATIC

Presentation

This event follows the first symposium which was held in Fez on November the 2nd and 3rd, 2012.

The "Frontiers project" was labeled by the Laboratory of Excellence "Arts- H2H" of the University of Paris 8. This project is based on a questioning of the concept of "frontiers". It is now more decisive than ever that researchers question the new forms of frontierson multiple level of interpretation and analysis, conjoining technological, social, cultural, artistic, ..., and geopolitical dimensions., etc . Digital technologies and ICT have been increasingly integrated into human activities, as an underlying reality matrix which may contribute to rethink modes of information and communication, namely the cyberspace.

"Digital Frontiers" may be transparent or opaque for users and machiines, according to the degree of mastering, of knowledge and the quality of innovative tools users put into practice... but what are the discriminating characteristics and setting that show the role of Digital technologies into new definitions of organizing, communicating, knowing, and collaborating? What are the interfaces that produce new frontiers and new information space et use ? : (how) can we apprehend theses digital-based trnasformations of conventional frontiers of the pre digital era ?

This reflection on the Digital Frontiers is committed to following the research conducted by Imad Saleh, Hakim Hachour and Nasreddine Bouhaï in the laboratory Paragraph. The massive dissemination of new media and digital tools in human activities (at any ldevel of the professional, cultural or social life) requieres to develop new theories, new methods and scientific reports on the impacts of ditila technologies in every aspect of everyday life, professionnal activities, and the macrosystems of interaction between individuals, firms and States. The interaction between the social and the technological dimensions is a reflexive process for technological innovation and human development. 

The Internet "generates frontiers", into the evolving cyberspace  on the one hand, and into the externeal common information space that we globaly manage and share.The diversity of information available in cyberspace offers possibilities forsocial reconfiguration and the virtualization of common areas, spaces, activities, realisation, creation and production. Either decentralized and distributed or localized and proprietary, digital frontiers raise the question of the hybridization of forms of representation, of interactivity and web-based collaborative work : virtual communities, HUman Machine Communication, Social networks, Data flow and treatment, Sharing and creative spaces, etc. 

Three paths are proposed to analyze the relationships between a priori separated worlds of meaning and action which have been melted by digital tools, practices, and new kind of perfromance:

• The uses of digital technologies that transform traditional frontiers of communication between individuals, between individuals and their environment, between organizations (networks, groups , institutions, States, ... ), public and private, recreational and professional, profane and expert ...
• The effects of digital technologies on representations that lead to rethink concepts, definitions and categories of conventional frontiers and unity of spaces , art , identity , knowledge , law, security, ...
• The study of digital technologies that transform habitual frontiers and "bondaries" of objects, activities and realms, particularly those offer innovative modes for the collection, the use and the processing of web data (eg ,cloud computing ) .

General themes

- Epistemology of digital humanities

- Internet's frontiers

- Internet and traditional frontiers and boundaries

- Invisible frotniers of the internet and the Deep web

- Real vs virtualfrontiers

- Digital identities

- Traces, traceability of digital data

- the Arts and digital frontiers 

Four specific themes

- E- Government and digital citizenship

- North-South and South-South e-Cooperation

- Dynamics of social network sites

- Cloud computing and data flow