How it works… – Cyberpunk Culture

The CyberPunk Culture Conference 2020 will take place on July 9th and July 10th, 2020. We will not be able to be “live” in all time zones but we will be available during “accessible” hours from Los Angeles to Berlin (sorry to all in Asia and Australia, this is a one-man show and I cannot moderate for 48h).

Here is the full timetable for the conference – click here.

There will be one presentation per slot, no double bookings. All presentations will be released here on this website during the week of the conference. There is a “live” q&a via Discord – please click the timetable for an overview of when each presentation is going to have its q&a. Registered participants will be informed via mail and announcements made on twitter so that you can enjoy all of the presentations of the conference.

We start live q&a sessions at:

6 a.m. – PST in Los Angeles
9 a.m. – EST in New York
14:00 h (or 2 p.m.) – GMT in London
15:00 h (or 3 p.m.) – CET in Berlin

… and run for roughly 10 hours each day with ample time between q&a.

The keynote lecture and the roundtable discussion are scheduled for the central part of the conference day and take place at 10 am / 1 pm / 18h / 19h respectively in each time zone.

Keynote & Roundtable

There will be a keynote by Pawel Frelik that will be the centerpiece for Thursday. The presentation will be longer than the usual paper presentation – roughly 25-30 minutes. In addition, there will be a longer discussion period on the Discord chat server of a full hour.

Similarly, as centerpiece on Friday, we will have a “live” roundtable with the editors and a few contributors of The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture (2020). This will be facilitated via Zoom Webinar and be the only part of the conference that uses a live video software. All registered participants will receive the invite link via email.

When are the presentations and discussions online?

During the week of the conference, presentation posts will be published here on this website before the time of the q&a so that you will all have enough time to view/read them and prepare for our live discussions (via chat). The q&a session will then be held in a specific time slot on a Discord chat server reserved for the conference and its “live” features. Each presenter will have a 30 min slot for discussions with the audience. You will only need to be “present” on the chat server for the q&a time slot.

The good thing about a cyberconference is that all talks remain active and available after their original scheduling. The chat room is open afterwards as well for one week. We encourage presenters to check back in to their chat rooms and see if further questions or feedback has accumulated. This way, everyone gets a chance to view/read everything and comment on things even days after the original publication of the event. We will limit the time for comments on the chat server to one week, though, to give presenters a final date for their interaction. Chats will then be transferred onto the blog post with the presentation so as to be archived there.

Do I need to be online all the time?

The conference will be online-only, meaning that in order to participate, yes, you will need online access. Since it is a conference based on pre-delivered papers though, you will not necessarily need to be in-sync with the conference. Material will remain accessible and discussions can take place over a longer period of time. The only “live” material will be the direct q&a sessions (via chat) and the Zoom webinar for the roundtable on Friday.

What tools/software do I need?

This depends on your level of involvement and your desire to be interactive.

Presenter (video):

camera and microphone – you can use the build-in devices but the quality might not be too great, so check if you can get a headset for recording to improve sound quality
Discord access – you need to participate (at least we strongly recommend it, for feedback and q&a) in the discussion of your paper on Discord after it goes live

Presenter (slides only):

jpg/png conversion – you need to send us your slides as jpg or png files so that we can easily implement them on the blog
Discord access – you need to participate (at least we strongly recommend it, for feedback and q&a) in the discussion of your paper on Discord after it goes live

Attendee (commenting):

Discord access – if you would like to ask the presenters about their work or have a comment to share, if you want to participate in the roundtable q&a, if you want to socialize with other attendees, you will need to go on Discord and be able to type there. Voice chats are not required. Discord commenting sections will remain open for one week after the conference.

Attendee (roundtable):

Webconference software – we haven’t yet decided which video conference tool (or webinar software) we are going to use, but in order to view the roundtable (live!) you will need some software to log in to and participate as a viewer. We will update you here.

Attendee (lurking only):

If all you want to do is to be inspired, then all you need is your internet access. You can view/read the presentations and wait for the discussions/comments to be transferred to the website. You can lurk all you want, at any time. No need for interaction.

What is a Discord chat server?

Discord is a communication tool, originally designed for game chats but branching out into many other areas of live chats. You can find out more here. The app can be used on any operating system, with a computer or a mobile device and thus provides a lot of flexibility. It has the option for text or voice chat and allows for a designated and private server.

If you want to participate in q&a or feedback discussions during this conference, you will need to register with the conference via email. Once you have done so, we will send you an invitation link to Discord. Please do not publicly share this link as we want to keep trolling off the platform and only want to engage with those participants genuinely interested in the conference.