Unpsychology issue 8 submissions call: Warm data

Submissions deadline: 31st December 2021

5 min readOct 26, 2021

Unpsychology Magazine Issue 8: Warm Data

We are now inviting submissions for Issue 8.This open call is for submissions of fiction, poetry, artwork, video and creative expressions. Essays and non-fiction are not requested in this instance in this open call.

This issue will be published in Spring 2022 as a digital and online anthology and will be offered free of charge to ensure maximum circulation of the ideas, writing and artwork.

You can download a pdf version of this submissions call document HERE.

Setting the Scene: about Unpsychology Magazine

Unpsychology Magazine is a labour of love. We (that is co-editors, Steve Thorp and Julia Macintosh — and past co-editor, Cae Hawkesmoor) have been working on it since 2014. We have been fortunate enough to have curated an impressive body of ‘mind-related’ art, writing and reflections from our wonderful contributors. Past issues have explored themes of childhood, climate, music and the other-than-human. As we write, in the Autumn of 2021, we have almost 1700 subscribers, and a growing team of contributors from psychology, art, activism and beyond.

You can download free past issues of Unpsychology at www.unpsychology.org and find a range of other contributions here on our Medium publication at: https://medium.com/unpsychologymag

Theme for issue 8: Warm Data

“The most important task of this moment is to generate a base of people who are eager to practice perceiving the complexity and interdependency in every aspect of our lives.” Nora Bateson

Our theme for issue 8 is Warm Data and this special issue is being published in partnership with the Warm Data Host community, that has been growing around the work of Nora Bateson. Co-edited and produced with Nora and others from the Warm Data community, the issue will highlight this work weaving together ideas, stories, poetry and artwork.

At a time when our systems are failing, and our responses to the crises human beings face are increasingly inadequate, new insights are required. Nora Bateson’s ‘Warm Data’ work around trancontextuality, symmathesy and aphanipoeisis is beginning to offer comprehensive sets of ‘frames within frames’ for seeing the world. These insights recognise that change emerges from liminal spaces; the places between and unseen; relational fields and flows; the interdependence within and between living ecologies and systems; the creative self and selves.

The Warm Data community has been growing over the past two years and contains a wealth of wisdom, creativity and practice from a wide range of cultural contexts. Transcontextual work is modelled and practiced in face-to-face Warm Data Labs and online People Need People (PNP) sessions, hosted by members of the community. These Hosts and collaborators also increasingly bring their transcontextual and ecological awareness to their relationships, communities, organisations, politics and wider culture.

From the Warm Data website:

“Warm Data is information about the interrelationships that connect elements of a complex system. Put another way, Warm Data is transcontextual information. Warm Data captures the qualitative dynamics and offers another dimension of understanding to what is learned through quantitative data, (cold data). The implications for the uses of Warm Data are staggering, and may offer a whole new dimension to the tools of information science we have to work with at present.

Warm Data is a specific kind of information about the way parts of a complex system, such as members of a family, organisms in the oceans, institutions in society, or departments of organisation, come together to give vitality to that system. By contrast, other data will describe only the parts, while Warm Data describes their interplay in context. Warm Data illustrates vital relationships between many parts of a system. For example, to understand a family, one must understand not only the family members, but also the relationships between them, that is, the warm data. In such cases, warm data is used to better understand and improve responses to issues that are located in the relational dynamics. Examples include understanding the systemic risks in health, ecology, economic systems, education systems and many more. The typical approach to issues decontextualises specific information, which in turn can generate mistakes. On the other hand, warm data promotes coherent understanding of living systems.”

Who this submissions call is for

This submission invitation is for Unpsychologists who may be thinking and creating ‘transcontextually’ — or for whom this theme evokes something new in their art and creativity.

* Storytellers, poets, visual artists and activists — who we encourage to tap into their complex, systemic and multitudinous selves…
* Musicians, composers, dancers, singers and all those curious about songs and music inspired by complexity and Warm Data.

What we are looking for

The invitation is for art, poetry and creative submissions that respond to and emerge from the themes and potential of Warm Data. We would encourage anyone wanting to submit to Issue 8 to familiarise themselves with Nora’s work on Warm Data. See the links in the Resources section below.

In this instance we are not seeking non-fiction or essays. Those elements are being invited from within the Warm Data Host community.

We invite submissions that respond to the theme as creatively as possible and which emerge from the multidimensional aspects of mind and ecology — whether this relate to systems, cultures, individuals or to the wider ecologies we all exist within.

Guidelines

We prefer work that is entirely original and hasn’t been published or submitted elsewhere — we want to encourage new frames for responding to these themes — but if you have an existing project or perspective you think would fit this issue of Unpsychology, get in touch and have a chat with one of us.

Submit writing in Word or Pages. Artwork as high quality jpeg.

Contact Steve or Julia at submissions@unpsychology.org with any queries.

Note: We value our authors and artists, and know ourselves how difficult it is to get creative work out there. Unpsychology Magazine is a self–funded publication, and so we haven’t got the resources to pay people for their work at this time. However, your work will be profiled on social media, and you will be invited to be involved in the Unpsychology community and events in coming months.