Circuit Breakers invites submissions that may respond directly to these prompts or use them as conceptual coordinates:

What does a broken interface make visible?

• How do errors, glitches, reveal systems of labor, extraction, or governance?

What forms of refusal produce knowledge?

• Where do communities, artists, or activists deliberately opt out, subvert, underuse, or misuse technologies? How do these refusals generate new theories, pedagogies, or designs?

What media ecologies reveal local sovereignties?

• What practices of maintenance, improvisation, tinkering, and sociotechnical invention enact autonomy and self-determination?

How do communities rewire infrastructures for survival?

• How do people manipulate, hack, or reconfigure systems, platforms, policies, archives, etc., to meet immediate needs or long-term imaginaries?

Which futures emerge when we reject technology optimization?

• If optimization is a colonial and capitalist demand, what futures can we imagine or prototype from slower, messier, plural forms of technology making?

We welcome projects and presentations across any of these formats:

• Pre-constituted Panels

• Individual Papers

• Critical Making Projects/Technological Interventions

• Creative Projects and Gallery Displays

• Workshops

• Professionalization Sessions

• Community-led Dialogues

• Sessions and projects featuring the NCSU iPearl Innovation Studio or Cyma Rubin Visualization Gallery are especially sought!

We do not expect polished or market-ready artifacts. Unfinished, partial, speculative, or failed projects are welcomed as legitimate research. See pages linked below for specific information.

Submission Guidelines

Who Can Submit?

If your work asks, “What becomes possible when the circuit breaks?” you’re warmly invited. This symposium emphasizes innovative and experimental work by University graduate students and faculty. If you imagine, refuse, subvert, repair, rewire, hack, glitch, or care, this is a place to share your experiments.

Accessibility & Care Commitments

We aim to make this symposium a space where bodies, minds, and communities can be held with care, respect, and flexibility.

We commit to:

• Accessible venues with mobility accommodations

• Captioning or transcripts upon request

• Flexible presentation formats (sitting, standing, hybrid, asynchronous)

• Quiet resting spaces

• Clear signage and sensory considerations

• Options to present remotely if illness, disability, caregiving, travel barriers, or life interruptions arise

• A culture of consent around photography and recording

When submitting, you’ll be able to share any accommodations or access practices you need.

No justification required—care is part of the circuitry here.

How We Review Submissions

To honor the symposium’s spirit, our review process will be guided by:

• Alignment with Themes: How the work engages rupture, refusal, care, decoloniality, improvisation, or technologies of otherwise

• Contribution: The insight, provocation, or creative resonance the work offers

• Care Orientation: Attention to relationality, reciprocity, community, or collective knowledge-making

• Inventiveness: How the work disrupts norms, expectations, or chrononormative demands

• Accessibility/Clarity: How clearly the proposal communicates its intentions—perfection not required

Unfinished work, experiments, and beautiful failures are enthusiastically welcomed.

Funding, Fees, & Material Support

There is no submission fee and no conference registration fee.

At this time, we cannot guarantee travel funding, but we are exploring possibilities for:

• Local community partner stipends

• Support for materials for critical making or gallery installations

• Transportation support for participants within the Triangle region

If funding becomes available, we’ll notify accepted presenters promptly.

Health & Safety

We will follow NCSU’s campus health and safety guidelines for Spring 2026.

Masks are welcome, and mutual care is encouraged. If you are not feeling well, we support remote/alternative participation.