DiGRA Italia 2019: Sub Specie Ludi
Date: October 11^th, 2019
Venue: Università di Torino, Italy
Submission deadline: 14th June (notifications of acceptance will be sent in 2-3 weeks).
Curated by: Riccardo Fassone (Università di Torino), Paolo Ruffino (University of Lincoln, UK), Marco Benoit Carbone (Brunel University London, UK).
Contact: digraitalia@gmail.com

http://www.digraitalia.org/

For the past two decades the study of games has been progressively institutionalized within universities and research centres. The perspective that has predominantly emerged in European and North American universities has privileged the study of digital games. Video games, supported by a global industry, have attracted scholars from various disciplines: from narratology to computer science and from design to cultural and media studies. DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association) was born primarily as an association of video game scholars, while maintaining a constant presence of researchers interested in role-playing, table games, and other forms of ludic practices. However, the complexity of game studies cannot be reduced to the study of a category of texts defined on the basis of their technological support. The study of games necessarily combines an awareness of both the conceptual and disciplinary complexity of a broad philosophical category and of the many and diverse contexts of play that are investigated by the social and anthropological sciences.

Canonical texts in game studies pay attention to these complexities. Johan Huizinga, in his seminal Homo Ludens (1938), outlined a study of culture through games (sub specie ludi), where divergent human activities are kept together through the lens of play. In the equally important Man, Play and Games (1961), Roger Caillois explored social, anthropological and biological phenomena identifying therein free and competitive forms of play, as well as open and structured, mimetic and chaotic games. Other influential studies have explored games in the fields of pedagogy and psychology (Playing and Reality, Winnicot 1971; The Ambiguity of Play, Sutton-Smith 1997), anthropology (The Interpretation of Cultures, Geertz 1973) and philosophy (Play as Symbol of the World, Fink 1960). These examples, drawn from different geographical and historical contexts and disciplines that include history, philosophy and the humanities, do not include further conceptualisations of play devised within fields such as ethology and natural sciences, which have only been discussed concomitantly by transversal, boundary-bending thinkers such as Roger Caillois.

The DiGRA Italia 2019 conference intends to encourage an inclusive, multidisciplinary and philosophical perspective on game studies, creating a dialogue across various approaches and disciplines. After a series of conferences focused mainly on the study of the video game, DiGRA Italia intends to shift the perspective: no longer focussing on the study of a medium, but on games in the broadest sense, intended as texts and practices from which to read complex social, cultural and historical contexts and phenomena. The conference aims to question the methodologies adopted by scholars of different backgrounds and how these delimit their own territories, boundaries, and objects of study.

The conference encourages a consideration of games not so much, or not only, as objects with specific technological and material characteristics. Instead, it invites scholars to reflect on the game as a lens through which they may be able to read and understand social, cultural, economic, linguistic and technical phenomena. The broadly encompassing remit of the conference encourages a plurality of perspectives. The following list is intended to solicit the interest of participants from different departments and research backgrounds. Inviting interventions in the following areas:

• Play, mimicry, biology (animals, insects, vegetation)
• Language games, language as game
• Performance and role-playing games
• Learning and education through play
• Ethnographic approaches to play practices
• Mathematics, economics and game theory
• Social media and the playful in online cultures
• Ideology, propaganda, political movements as serious play
• Quantified bodies and playful self-help methods
• Games as social threats, apocalyptic visions and determinism
• Game theory, theory as game

Please send your proposals to digraitalia@gmail.com by June 14th, 2019. They accept abstracts of up to 500 words, or complete papers of up to 5000 words. Please attach a short biographical note (150 words).

The Audio Mostly (www.audiomostly.com) conference series is interested in sound Interaction Design & Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in general. Audio Mostly will take place from the 18th to 20th of September 2019 at the University of Nottingham in the city of Nottingham in the UK. The conference provides a space to reflect on the role of sound/music in our lives and how to understand, develop and design systems which relate to sound and music. The special theme for the conference this year is ‘A Journey in Sound’. This year the theme of the conference is open to interpretation, but people might think about the following, in relation to the theme:

• Sonic aspects of digital stories, documentaries and archives
• The soundtrack to our lives. Archiving and sharing sound
• The emotional potential of a sound, how might this be used to support interaction
• The different uses of sound and music across different settings
• The re-use of recollections and memories by composers and sound designers
• The development of musical tools that can let us express our experiences over time
• Socio-technical uses of AI create highly personalised soundtracks that respond to one’s context
• Adaptive sound and music use in journeys, time and the creative use of data

They encourage original regular papers (oral/poster presentation) addressing the conference theme or other topics from the list provided below. They welcome multidisciplinary approaches involving fields such as music informatics, information and communication technologies, sound design, music performance, visualisation, composition, perception/cognition and aesthetics.

• Accessibility
• Aesthetics
• Affective computing applied to sound/music
• AI, HCI and Music
• Acoustics and Psychoacoustics
• Auditory display and sonification
• Augmented and virtual reality with or for sound and music
• Computational musicology
• Critical approaches to interaction, design and sound
• Digital augmentation (e.g. musical instruments, stage, studio, audiences, performers, objects)
• Digital music libraries
• Ethnographic studies
• Gamic and Playful music experiences

For more information and other topics please see: https://audiomostly.com/2019/call/cfp/
The Audio Mostly 2019 proceedings will be published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) (awaiting approval) and made available through their digital library. Regular papers, posters and demos/installations will be double-blind peer reviewed. It is envisaged that there will be a special issue of a journal relating to the conference, as with previous years.

Dates

• Submission Deadline: 24th May 2019
• Acceptance: 14th July 2019
• Camera Ready: 9th August 2019
• Conference: 18th to 20th of September at the University of Nottingham in the city of Nottingham in the UK

Submission Site

• https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=am2019

Contact

For more information or questions, please contact either Konstantinos Papangelis at k.papangelis@liverpool.ac.uk or the Paper and Poster Chairs: Adrian Hazzard – adrian.hazzard@nottingham.ac.uk Elizabeth Kelly – elizabeth.kelly@nottingham.ac.uk

Reminder: paper submission deadline on May 21st

The ACM Symposium on Applied Perception (ACM SAP) provides an intimate, immersive forum for researchers who combine knowledge, methods, and insights from perception research andcomputer science disciplines. This explicitly includes such disciplines as cognitive psychology, perceptual psychology, psychophysics, behavior-analysis, and neuroscience on the perceptual side and computer graphics, computer vision, visualization, and human-computer interfaces on the visual computing side to name just a few! The interdisciplinary focus of this conference explicitly acknowledges that the various scientific disciplines in perception research and computer science research use different but complementary methods to address fundamentally similar questions. As such, combinations of knowledge, methods, and/or insights from the different fields can help to advance all of the applied perception fields.

ACM SAP 2019 will be held in Barcelona, Spain on the 19th and 20th of September, 2019. We invite submissions of original work in all areas of applied perception, regardless of sensory modality (vision, haptics, acoustics, proprioception, etc.). The focus of the work can be either perceptual or computational, but each submission must – as always – include elements of both perception and visual computing.Relevant approaches include:

→ application of perceptual research to any area of computer science, including:

• modeling, rendering, animation;
• virtual environments, characters;
• processing information from artificial sensors;
• representation of data, communication of data.

→ applications of computer science to any area of perception, such as:

• modeling natural perceptual systems;
• simulating natural perceptual systems;
• systematic study of natural perceptual systems.

Papers

Research can be submitted as long paper (up to 8 pages) or as a short paper (up to 4 pages). In all cases the page limit is EXCLUSIVE of the pages devoted to bibliographic references and appendices. Authors are explicitly encouraged to include a full citation list. All submissions should follow the general SIGGRAPH formatting guidelines Please submit all papers formatted for a double blind review. Diagrams and images should be in color where appropriate. At least one author of an accepted paper must register for and attend the conference. Research that is not accepted as a paper will automatically be considered for the poster session. Authors can, of course, decline to have their work be considered as a poster.

Posters

The posters program at SAP provides an informal venue for authors to share their research achievements and further discuss them with others. In that spirit, we encourage all types of scholarly submissions that fit the scope of ACM SAP. In particular, we explicitly welcome poster submissions on work-in-progress and on work that may have been previously published elsewhere but for which additional dissemination and discussion is desired. The poster session is an integral part of SAP and the SAP program will include a dedicated time slot for poster viewing and discussion. All poster presenters will also have the opportunity to give a one-minute presentation on their work during a poster fast-forward session.

NOTE: SAP poster abstracts are NOT considered to be publications, and as such will NOT appear in the ACM Digital Library. Poster abstracts WILL be included in the conference USB drive. Poster extended abstracts may include figures and should follow the general SIGGRAPH formatting guidelines, except that they should be 1 page long. Note that you do not need to submit the actual poster.

***New Reviewing Process***

Starting this year, we have adopted a new reviewing process. Each submitted paper will be assigned to the two members of the International Program Committee (IPC) whose expertise most closely matches the topic(s) of the paper. Each IPC member will find two external, independent experts to perform the actual reviews. Subsequently, the four reviewers and two IPC members will engage in a discussion about the paper and the reviews, working towards a consensus recommendation for the paper. This discussion will occur on a paper-by-paper basis. No reviewer or IPC member will have access to the discussion or reviews for a paper to which they were not assigned. The two program chairs will, as usual, consider the recommendation(s), the contents of the reviews, as well as the papers themselves to reach a final decision on each paper.

Possibility for Journal Publication

Under an agreement with the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP) and the ACM Publications Board, the strongest accepted papers will be offered publication as full papers in the ACM journal TAP (instead of appearing in the proceedings). Authors of such special issue papers must agree to present the paper at ACM SAP. As has always been the case, authors of regular ACM SAP papers can still submit to TAP regular issues with appropriate additions. Papers that have been recommended for acceptance in the ACM TAP journal will undergo a second review cycle, during which the authors will revise the paper to address reviewer concerns (similar to conditional acceptances at ACM SIGGRAPH). Please note that TAP referrals are conditional. The TAP reviewers may recommend bringing the paper back to the SAP proceedings if the quality of the revision is inadequate. Therefore, it is very important to incorporate as many reviewer comments as possible into the revision.

The revised paper has to be submitted in TAP format to Manuscript Central and must include a cover letter stating that the submission is for the SAP special issue. The cover letter should also document the list of changes made to the paper to address the reviewer concerns. Please note that TAP has a 20 page limit INCLUDING references. Reformatting, a paper from the SAP format to the TAP format typically adds a few pages. Complete TAP author guidelines and templates are available at http://tap.acm.org/authors.cfm

Deadlines

Each deadline is 23:59:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth) ==> GMT/UTC-12:00 on the stated day, no matter where the submitter is located.

Papers:

• Tuesday, May 14th: Abstract submission
• Tuesday, May 21st: Paper submission
• Tuesday, June 25th: Paper re-submission
• Tuesday, July 2nd: Decisions announced
• Tuesday, July 14th: Final papers due

Posters:

• Tuesday, July 9th: Poster submission
• Tuesday, July 16th: Decisions announced
• Tuesday, July 23rd: Camera ready version of 1-page abstract due

Our Information for Authors page includes deadlines and other important information for authors planning on submitting papers or posters

CALL FOR PAPERS
Teaching Games:Pedagogical Approaches DiGRA 2019 Pre-Conference Workshop (TGPA:DiGRA2019)

Context of Teaching Games
Game studies, art, design, narrative, development, and game research method courses are proliferating across colleges and universities. Some classes are organized into formal game design programs while others are not. They can be offered in a wide range of departments and disciplines, including media studies, communications, computer science, sociology, English, education, political science, art, and many others. The primary goal of such courses is varied: to teach game design skills, game writing, production, development, critical analysis skills, as well as the history and context of digital games. This workshop is for instructors in higher education of all such courses to discuss their approaches, troubleshoot issues, as well as identify best practices for the course and assignment design.

The workshop is co-located and organized with the 2019 DiGRA 2019 conference in Kyoto, Japan, and will take place on August 6th, 2019. It builds on successful past versions of the workshop run at both DiGRA and FDG in 2014 and 2015, as well as on a later workshop on transgressive teaching strategies in game studies at NDigra in 2018 and HEVGA Game Educators’ Summits and symposia held in 2017 and 2018. The aim of this iteration is threefold: to broaden the scope of teaching about games more generally, to build a community around pedagogy and to generate scholarship that will result in a peer-reviewed publication.

Objectives and Outcomes
The aim of the workshop is to benefit pedagogy about games by discussing current issues and potential future directions in games teaching as well as to provide a forum for sharing and critiquing pedagogical practices. The latter will be especially valuable for scholars who are among the only faculty at their institution teaching games.
The workshop will be conducted in two parts: The morning session will be dedicated to paper presentations and discussions. The post-lunch session will be organized as work sessions, where groups discuss particular topics (self-organized by interests).

*** Topics ***
The workshop invites papers about teaching games in higher education. The following list suggests topics, but other topics relevant to pedagogical approaches in teaching games are welcome.
● Pedagogical methods to teaching games
● Integrating games into a pre-existing curriculum
● Case studies—teaching specific topics or areas
● Bridging theory and practice through the curriculum
● Creating new teaching resources and tools
● Teaching students to study players
● Teaching game research methods
● Industry partnerships
● Working with diverse groups of students and multi-disciplinary faculty
● Logistical challenges of teaching games (access to games, preservation, and fair use)

*** Submission guidelines ***
We will accept submissions for short papers between 1000 and 3000 words in length (excluding references). Submissions will be subject to double-blind peer review. Each submission will receive feedback from at least two reviewers. Authors of accepted submissions will be invited to give an oral presentation of their submission. Submissions must use the provided MS Word template or the LaTeX template for the workshop (both templates are available at hevga.org/digracfp – in case the page is down, see links below).

All submissions should be in the PDF format and be submitted through EasyChair. Accepted papers will be made available online at the workshop webpage.

A special issue of the ToDiGRA Journal (published by ETC Press at Carnegie Mellon) is a planned outcome of the workshop. Selected workshop papers will be invited to submit a journal article version for inclusion in a special issue of the ToDiGRA Journal. Publication in the special issue will require passing a second round of peer reviews.

*** Workshop Deadlines ***
Deadline for paper submissions: May 31, 2019
Notification of acceptance: June 28, 2019
Final drafts of papers due: July 19, 2019
Workshop: August 6, 2019
Revised papers submitted to journal for publication: October 1, 2019

*** Webpages ***
Workshop webpage: hevga.org/digracfp
Submissions page: easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tgpa19
Template .docx: interactivenarrativedesign.org/digrawstemplate.docx
Template LaTeX: www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/tgap-workshop-digra-template-2019/prjhkzzstyym

*** Workshop Location and Time ***
Location: Room Zonshin 206, Ritsumeikan University Kinugasa Campus, Kyoto, Japan
Date and Time: August 6, 2019, 9:00-15:50 with a lunch break 12:00-13:00

ICIDS is the premier conference for researchers and practitioners concerned with studying digital interactive forms of narrative from a variety of perspectives, including theoretical, technological, and applied design lenses. The annual conference is an interdisciplinary gathering that combines technology-focused approaches with humanities-inspired theoretical inquiry, empirical research and artistic expression.

With this 12th edition of the conference, ICIDS continues into its second decade. The field of interactive narrative has now coalesced into a recognizable entity. This year’s organizers take this edition as an opportunity to expand on previously identified topics, related to this year’s special theme:

Design Foundations, Innovations, and Practices

This year’s conference features a special theme of “Design Foundations, Innovations, and Practices.” In addition to topics covered by previous iterations of ICIDS, the conference program will feature topic areas that focus on principles of design, advancements in the design lifecycle, and design process case studies for interactive storytelling.

This theme broadens prior topic areas within which they expand our design understanding.

• They target principles of design through:

  • Human Factors via work on understanding cognitive and affective aspects of interactive storytelling, and

  • Theoretical Foundations via work on the design of storyworlds writ large.

• They target advancements in the design lifecycle through:

  • Technology via work on the role of digital game technologies in interactive storytelling, and

  • Cultural and Societal Impact via work on the ethical, moral, social, and policy issues surrounding the design of interactive storytelling artifacts, including (but not limited to) issues surrounding representation, purposive interactive stories and games, and procedural rhetoric.

• They target design process case studies through:

  • Interactive Digital Narrative Practices and Applications via work on industry production practices, live-action role-playing systems, and the use of interactive storytelling for learning and as tools for teaching.

Submissions are therefore invited on the following topics, which are understood as broad and inclusive of additional topics not mentioned here explicitly.

CREATING THE DISCIPLINE: INTERACTIVE DIGITAL NARRATIVE STUDIES

• Papers related to the topic of Interactive Digital Narrative Studies as a distinct discipline.

• Cross-cutting analyses of interactive digital narrative forms that examine and possibly compare different traditions, e.g. hyperfiction and VR, IF and game narrative etc. Analysis can be of technology, design, works, education, etc.

• Demonstration of different lenses or methods applied in analysis and/or design of interactive digital narrative works, such as performance studies, media anthropology, literary studies, etc.

• Ideas how to move the field of Interactive Digital Narrative Studies forward.

IMPACTING CULTURE AND SOCIETY

• Papers concerning the societal impact of interactive digital storytelling.

• The lack of high-quality criticism of interactive narrative works (compared to that available for print literature and movies) and this shortcoming’s effect on the medium as well as its public perception, including possible solutions.

• The influence of interactive digital narrative on contemporary culture, as well as possible future developments.

• The influence of contemporary culture on interactive digital narrative.

• The nature and role of interactive digital narrative literacy and how such literacy can be created.

• Ethical, moral, social, and policy issues surrounding the design of interactive storytelling artifacts. (New!)

• Representation in interactive storytelling. (New!)

• Procedural rhetoric. (New!)

• Purposive interactive stories and games. (New!)

INTERACTIVE DIGITAL NARRATIVE PRACTICES AND APPLICATIONS

• Discussion of interactive digital narratives, either from the perspective of design practice and methods, analysis of applications or case studies, and/or reception and use of applications.

• Explorations of how game technologies and techniques overlap and impact the field of interactive digital narrative, and how interactive narratives in turn influence games.

• Explorations of how theatrical and performative practices inform interactive digital narratives, and what theatre or performance work can learn from interactive digital narratives.

• Example areas of practice include interactive cinema and television, interactive documentaries, educational and health-related applications, interactive installations, performative uses and interactive digital narratives in museums

• Industry production practices.  (New!)

• Live-action role-playing systems and their relation to interactive storytelling. (New!)

• Interactive storytelling for learning and as tools for teaching. (New!)

INVESTIGATING OUR HISTORY

• Papers providing historical analysis and perspectives.

• Approaches towards a combined, critical history of the field, including suitable methods for working towards such a history.

• Issues related to archiving and/or preserving interactive digital narrative works.

• Critical thinking around the canon, e.g., whether current methods are suitable for expanding it, whether we are aware of gaps or erasures, particularly those related to designers who hold marginalized identities.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

• Papers discussing the role of the author/designer in interactive digital narratives.

• Approaches towards models for interactive digital narratives inspired by cognitive science, narratology, performance studies and theatre, and related disciplines.

• Theories and aesthetics of interactive digital narratives.

• Storyworlds (New!)

TECHNOLOGIES

• Papers on Artificial Intelligence techniques for interactive or procedural and adaptive storytelling, e.g., drama management and virtual characters.

• Procedural generation of narrative elements, e.g., plot, stories, narrative discourses, characters, storyworlds, story-based puzzles, etc.

• Narrative knowledge representation, reasoning and acquisition.

• Authoring tools.

• Interactive cinema and iTV technologies.

• Novel interfaces and feedback technology.

• User modeling approaches.

• Augmented and Mixed Reality storytelling systems.

• Big data and interactive digital storytelling.

• Interactive storytelling and digital game technologies (e.g. game engines) (New!)

HUMAN FACTORS

• Methods for testing the user experience or story development.

• Normative evaluation of interactive digital storytelling applications.

• Discussions of narrative-related affect and emotion.

• Discussions of narrative presence and engagement in virtual environments.

• Cognitive and affective aspects of interactive storytelling. (New!)

SUBMISSIONS

• The peer review process for ICIDS will be double blind and follow the guidelines set out by the ICIDS Steering Committee: icids.org/ICIDS-REVIEW_GUIDELINES.pdf

• All submissions must follow the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) format, available at: www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0

• Papers must be written in English, and only electronic submissions in PDF format will be considered for review. All submissions will be processed using the Easychair Online Conference System. Authors are advised to register a new account well in advance of the paper submission deadline: easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icids2019

SUBMISSION CATEGORIES

• Full papers (9-12 pages, excluding references, in the proceedings) describing interesting, novel results or completed work in all topics of this call.

• Short papers (6-8 pages, excluding references, in the proceedings) presenting exciting preliminary work or novel, thought-provoking ideas in their early stages.

• Posters (2-4 pages, excluding references, in the proceedings) describing working, presentable systems or brief explanations of a research project.

• There will be an additional call for Demonstrations and Workshop Proposals at a later date as well as a call for the Doctoral Consortium

• A separate call for artworks for the ICIDS 2019 Art Exhibition will also be announced at a later stage.

IMPORTANT DATES

• All deadlines are specified as Anywhere on Earth time unless otherwise noted.

• Paper & Poster submission: July 12th, 2019

• Initial Notification: August 23rd, 2019

• Author Rebuttals: August 30th, 2019

• Final notifications: September 6th, 2019

• Camera-ready submission: September 13th, 2019

Games, Media and Communication: Quo Vadis?

Call for presentations and panel proposals for the ECREA Digital Games Research Section symposium in collaboration with the Gaming Matters Research Cluster of the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture (ERMeCC)

7-8.11.2019, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands

The 2010s is almost over, and game studies is preparing to enter another decade. The current decade has seen discussions on ludification and e-sports as well as the true breakthrough of terms such as gamification, signifying the pervasive and ubiquitous nature of games and play in contemporary societies. This symposium hosted by the ECREA Digital Games Research Section aims to look at where we have been and where we are going as a field – what could be the next steps? Where could we go from here, and what is going to happen to game studies in the 2020s? How does the multi-disciplinary field of game studies relate to the similarly multi-disciplinary field of communication studies? What kind of innovations are waiting around the corner when it comes to novel research methods or theorizing? What kind of phenomena are only beginning to receive attention, where are the remaining gaps in research?

They are inviting presentations and panels, which may deal with any aspect of game studies or the intersection of game studies with the broader field of communication sciences. They especially encourage proposals that deal with innovations in research methods, empirical research, theory development, interdisciplinary collaboration, and other ways of renewing or re-inventing game studies. They are also open to discussing work-in-progress research projects.

Possible topics include, but are not restricted to, the ones listed here:

• Theoretical approaches and methodological advances in digital games research
• The production, content, audiences and regulation of digital games
• Digital game culture and gaming communities
• Social interaction in and around digital games
• Social and psychological aspects of digital gaming
• Digital games in the field of education
• Communication in and about digital games
• Playful interaction in its various forms
• Avatars, identification, and self-representation in virtual worlds
• Digital game experience, gamer motivations, enjoyment and presence research
• Digital games in comparison with other forms of media entertainment
• Innovations in gaming, such as the use of virtual reality, augmented reality, and location-based gaming

Submission guidelines
Abstracts should be max. 500 words + bibliography, and include the contact information of the author(s).
Panel proposals should include 1) a 300-word rationale for the panel, 2) a 150-word abstract describing each participant’s contribution, and 3) contact information for each panelist. Each panelist must be willing to register for and attend the symposium if the panel is accepted.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be submitted by April 30th 2019 through EasyChair. https://easychair.org/cfp/gameco2019

Decisions on the proposals will be made by the end of May 2019. There are plans to produce a publication, either a journal theme issues or an edited volume, based on selected seminar presentations.

Venue
The conference will be held at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands thanks to the support of the Gaming Matters Research Cluster of the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture (ERMeCC)