GAMESCENES

EVENT: PROJECT HASHTAG 2024 (NOVEMBER 15 2024 - APRIL 27 2025, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA)

PROJECT HASHTAG 2024. Photo: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

Wish Office & Playing Art Method: PROJECT HASHTAG 2024
November 15, 2024–April 27, 2025

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul
99 Sejong-daero
Jung District
Seoul
South Korea

press release

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA; director Kim Sunghee) is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition for PROJECT HASHTAG 2024, an open call initiative aimed at discovering promising creators and supporting interdisciplinary collaboration in the visual arts. The exhibition will take place from November 15, 2024 to April 27, 2025 at MMCA Seoul.

In partnership with Hyundai Motor Company, PROJECT HASHTAG was launched in 2019 and is now in its fifth year. The project has successfully established itself as a new platform for artistic creation, fostering collaboration among artists, curators, researchers, and other cultural practitioners. This year two teams, Wish Office and Playing Art Method, were selected from among 148 applicants representing diverse fields. Both teams have been working on their projects with the support of KRW 30 million and access to studio space at MMCA Residency Changdong.

Installation view of Wish Office, The Wishes, 2024. Photo: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

Wish Office (Kim Raeo, Seo John, Seo Jin kyu, Oh Saeol, and Titanium (Choi Joon Seong)) presents a project called Wish World—a metaverse environment where everyone’s wishes can be fulfilled. This project takes the form of a social experiment, reflecting on the often challenging realities of personal struggles in contemporary society through a game-like experience. Visitors to the exhibition have the option to submit their wishes to be processed through an AI classification system and delivered into the Wish World. The fate of this virtual world—whether it thrives or withers—depends on these submitted wishes. The project explores themes of frustration, desire, and hope, reflecting on the feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and need for recognition experienced by many people. It incorporates popular cultural concepts such as time travel, reincarnation, and transmigration, recently trending in webcomics and online novels. The project simulates what might happen if these “lucky breaks,” known as hoebinghwan (an amalgamation of the words hoegwi [regression], bingui [transmigration], and hwansaeng [reincarnation]), once reserved exclusively for protagonists, were extended to everyone, allowing participants to see the outcomes of these second chances.

Installation view of Playing Art Method, Playing Art Method, 2024. Photo: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

Playing Art Method (Cho Hoyoun, Kim Youngju, and Sei Rhee) is a collaboration between Parade & Patchwork, an exhibition planning group led by Rhee Sei, and Loopntale, a media art-based game production team consisting of Cho Hoyoun and Kim Youngju. Playing Art Method proposes a project under the same name to explore the questions that arise when “Video games” are exhibited in an art museum. Through exhibitions, workshops, and animated posters, they aim to generate meaningful discourse on these topics. This project reconsiders the position of games and game developers within the contemporary art ecosystem, establishing branding strategies for these creators. Learning materials that help visitors interpret the meanings within the games are displayed alongside the games themselves, and experts from a range of fields—including poets, game researchers, and art critics—provide insights into the project from various perspectives. These experts act as docents while also showcasing their current or long-term interests, interacting directly with visitors in the exhibition space.

This year’s program also includes a variety of related programs including live game streaming sessions, talks, docent programs, and game walk through workshops in collaboration with experts from different fields. To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the project, a special event featuring past PROJECT HASHTAG participants will also be held, offering a retrospective look at the significance of interdisciplinary collaboration over the past five years.

Kim Sunghee, director of the MMCA, notes, “Just as hashtags connect different subjects and people in our contemporary digital culture, PROJECT HASHTAG 2024 aims to bring together creators from diverse backgrounds to create new artistic synergies and expand the potential of contemporary art.”

LINK: Wish Office & Playing Art Method: PROJECT HASHTAG 2024

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: BA & MFA IN DIGITAL ARTS WITH UBERMORGEN (VIENNA, AUSTRIA)

UBERMORGEN, Joint Multispecies Ops: Digital Art Department – Jungle Zone – Work Simulation, 2024

BA & MFA in Digital Arts with UBERMORGEN
University of Applied Arts Vienna
Department of Digital Art
Georg‐Coch‐Platz 2
1010 Vienna
Austria

press release

Our four-year diploma program (combined/dual-degree BA/MFA program) is all about pushing boundaries of digital media & artistic context. No formal education needed to apply—just curiosity & motivation. Classes are mainly in English. We’re thrilled to welcome global talents, dynamic collectives, and neurodivergent minds. Oh, and it’s tuition free*.

What we’re looking for in a portfolio: hit us up with whatever you’re into—raw, polished, or anything in between, the actual things or a documentation thereof… WIPs, concepts, sketches, project docs, your socials, 3d/ar/vr, sound experiments, code, photoshop madness, conceptual or chaotic ai, NFTs or crypto ware, pixels & asci, interactive thoughts, offbeat ideas, your personal aesthetics, — include a brief write-up about your experiences and explorations. Describe for us how you approach making things and how you think, tell us about your struggles & obsessions, and the idols, scenes & media you vibe with. Plus add a quick CV & a picture of yourself.

The department gives you flexible spaces, a crew of passionate people, cutting-edge gear, and a vibe shift that unlocks fresh dimensions & alternate realities***. Teaching staff include Douglas Rushkoff, Olia Lialina, Melissa Logan, Christiane Paul, Abdul Shakir Abu Samah, Anika Meier, Kevin Abosch, Domenico Quaranta, Julian Hessenthaler, Tracey Rose, Sreejata Roy, Michelle Kasprzak, Addie Wagenknecht, Joshua Amissah, Andre Croucamp, Inke Arns, Yukiko Shikata, Sarah Grant, and Alexander Nikolic.

Celebrating 40 years of groundbreaking work, Europe’s first media art program, launched in 1984 by visionary artist and theorist Peter Weibel, set the stage as a trailblazer in media art education. Today, UBERMORGEN, the bold team famed for their feral energy and relentless global art actions, leads the department with a decentralized curriculum and through mentorships, and project-based learning.

To apply or learn more, join our online open days on January 7, 11am–3pm CET, 2025.  Contact: [email protected].

* Tuition rates: EU/EEA/Swiss; least developed, other low income countries and lower middle income countries as per OECD list: 24 EUR per semester. Upper middle income countries as per OECD list: 375 EUR per semester. Rest of the world: 750 EUR per semester

***Own the future, set digital art on fire, and disrupt the neoliberal grind! For a world where art isn’t owned by profit!

LINK: BA & MFA in Digital Arts with UBERMORGEN

EVENT: EDWIN LO (DECEMBER 6 - 19 2024, ONLINE)

End Time and The Trajectories of Ancestors

digital video, color, sound, 34’ 26”, 2022, Hong Kong.

created by Edwin Lo

December 6 - 19 2024

vral.org

 

A machinima video essay that intertwines fragments of Native American history with digital landscapes using Far Cry 5 (2018), End Time and The Trajectories of Ancestors explores themes of religious survivalism, cultural memory, and land representation within digital spaces. By overlaying Far Cry 5 ’s depiction of the state of Montana with archival records and testimonies, the project interrogates how video games engage with colonization, land appropriation, and cultural violence, while reclaiming virtual spaces to amplify marginalized voices.

Edwin Lo is an artist and researcher whose practice spans video, image, installation, sound, and video games. His work recontextualizes video games as dynamic spaces for artistic exploration, rather than treating them as static texts. Lo’s approach integrates sound, machinima, and thematic investigations into technology, faith, and the human condition, resulting in a layered, multifaceted engagement with digital media. He holds a Master of Arts from the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, and his work has been exhibited internationally. Recent exhibitions include presentations by the Goethe-Institut and Para/site in Hong Kong, Palais de Tokyo, Tokyo Arts and Space, the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, Loop Barcelona, Image Forum, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and Meinblau Projektraum in Berlin. Lo currently lives and works in Hong Kong.

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GAME ART: HUGO PILATE’S LAGARES DO ALVARÁ (2023)

Lagares do Alvará is a virtual environment created using Unreal Editor for Fortnite, envisioning a partial reimagination of Mouraria, Lisbon, as a thriving, self-sustaining neighborhood no longer reliant on tourism. The project was mmissioned by Davide Onestini and André Trindade (aka By the End of May) for the 2024 Gentler Futures Festival. Special thanks to Maria Mascarenhas for providing invaluable local insights, enriching the project with contextual depth, and recommending Vale dos Vencidos, José Smith Vargas’s evocative graphic novel.

Hugo Pilate’s work revolves around enabling diverse groups to collaborate effectively by crafting shared visions, defining guiding values and principles, and developing actionable plans to bring concepts to life—from research to prototyping and piloting. His practice thrives at the intersection of design fiction, urban development, gamer culture, and maker culture, drawing inspiration from practitioners such as Sara Hendren, Nicolas Nova, Taeyoon Choi, and José Sanchez. With over a decade of experience, Hugo has honed a multidisciplinary approach that bridges speculative design with practical implementation, fostering innovation and inclusivity in collective projects. Beyond his professional endeavors, he nurtures a passion for creative coding and small-scale digital experiments. He has organized hackathons such as Digikat and Museomix India, exploring the interplay between traditional crafts and creative technologies.

LINK: Hugo Pilate

Fortnite map: Lagares do Alvará

EVENT: ISABELLE ARVERS (NOVEMBER 22 - DECEMBER 5 2024, ONLINE)

Liquid Forest

machinima, color, sound (soundtrack: Gaël Manangou, Congo), 8’ 37”, 2023/2024, France/Congo

created by Isabelle Arvers

November 22 - December 5 2024

vral.org

 
Does the white man really not know that if he destroys the forest, the rain will stop? And that if the rain stops, he won’t have anything to eat or drink?” This question, posed by Yanomami activist and philosopher David Kopenawa in La chute du ciel, strikes at the heart of today’s ecological crisis. Scientist Antonio Donato Nobre, in his 2010 TEDxAmazonia talk, deepens this understanding of interconnectedness by describing how each tree “sweats,” releasing over 1,000 liters of water into the atmosphere daily—an essential part of what he calls vertical rivers. Without forests, these rivers vanish, and with them, water itself. This crisis is not confined to the Amazon. In West Africa and Madagascar, iconic baobabs — known for their spongy wood that acts as natural cisterns, storing water critical to local communities — have been dying at alarming rates over the past decade. Liquid Forest immerses viewers in these vertical rivers, offering a journey through baobabs and corals that dissolves binaries and unveils fluid, interconnected realities. The work invites audiences to inhabit a universe where everything is interlinked, delivering a sensory experience that highlights the fragile equilibrium of ecosystems and the pressing need to protect them.

Isabelle Arvers is a French artist, curator, and scholar whose pioneering work at the intersection of art and video games has shaped new media practices for over two decades. She holds a Ph.D. in Art & Games Decolonization, and her research focuses on the artistic, ethical, and critical implications of digital gaming. Arvers is widely recognized for her exploration of video games as a medium for artistic expression, particularly through machinima, which transforms video games into creative tools. As a curator, she has organized numerous exhibitions and festivals worldwide, from Playtime at Villette Numérique in Paris to Jibambe na Tec in Nairobi, and her work is deeply embedded in decolonial, feminist, and queer approaches to gaming culture. Arvers’s projects also focus on challenging borders – both digital and geographical – through initiatives like the antiAtlas of Borders exhibitions. In addition to her curatorial practice, Arvers’s activism and research have led her to collaborate with artists globally, particularly in non-Western countries. Her Art and Games World Tour sought to amplify the voices of marginalized game creators and explore how video games can serve as tools for resistance and alternative storytelling. Her association, Kareron, continues to produce projects related to cyber feminism and alternative media, including TRANS//BORDER, a tribute to Nathalie Magnan. Arvers has also contributed critical essays to a range of publications and curated workshops on machinima and game art to democratize these practices.

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CALL FOR ARTWORKS: FILE SP 2025 (DEADLINE: JANUARY 15 2025)

FILE 2025 – Open Call – Art and Technology

FILE is now accepting applications for the 2025 edition, inviting artists, creators, developers and researchers to submit their projects. This is a unique opportunity to exhibit your work in São Paulo, from July 15 to September 7, 2025, at the renowned FIESP Cultural Center.

We seek innovative and creative projects that integrate art and technology, both national and international, covering diverse areas such as installations, robotics, CGI, virtual and augmented realities, animations, mobile art, games, kinetic art, public art and much more. We value proposals that explore interaction with the public and the use of Artificial Intelligence, in various formats of artistic expression.

As a non-profit cultural organization, FILE promotes experimentation and development in the field of Art and Technology, providing a platform for artists to connect with new audiences. In this 24th edition, the festival continues its commitment to exploring the boundaries between technology and art.

You can also take advantage of the chance to participate in the FILE LED SHOW, exhibited annually at the FIESP Digital Art Gallery, or to lead a session at the FILE WORKSHOP. Sign up using the form and check the guidelines in the regulations.

Project submission: until January 15, 2025

FILE SP 2025: from July 15 to September 7, 2025

Read more about the submission

FILE FESTIVAL

GAME ART: ARIA DEAN’S VIDEO GAME SCULPTURES (2024)

Aria Dean,  the visible (torso) world, 2024, Bronze and steel
32.5 x 31.25 x 20.5 in / 82.5 x 79.4 x 52 cm

Aria Dean, Facts Worth Knowing at Châeau Shatto gallery, Los Angeles, installation shot, 2024

Aria Dean, o, ye I encountered context exposed at the nape of your neck/stripped flat to hold space for your friends, 2024
Bronze 17.5 x 32.25 x 29.5 in / 44.5 x 83 x 74.9 cm

Images courtesy of the artist and Châeau Shatto, Los Angeles

 

Aria Dean integrates Rockstar Games/Team Bondi’s L.A. Noire into her artistic practice by extracting and manipulating digital models from the game, particularly representations of the set of D.W. Griffith’s film Intolerance. Her work explores the historical and cultural entanglement of objects, focusing on their representational systems and their transition from digital to physical mediums. In using L.A. Noire, she investigates the layered nature of visual models, such as the low poly surfaces typical of video games, and recontextualizes them within the broader history of illusionism, realism, and cinematic perception.

Dean’s practice is distinguished by her ability to interrogate and unsettle the boundaries between digital and physical, reality and fiction. By reconfiguring materials sourced from a video game, she challenges traditional sculptural forms and phenomenological experiences. Her work uniquely addresses the intersection of contemporary digital aesthetics and historical references, questioning how reality is constructed and understood within mediated spaces.

Aria Dean (b. 1993, Los Angeles, USA) is an artist, writer and filmmaker based in New York. Selected solo and group exhibitions of her work have been presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; Whitney Biennial 2022, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; REDCAT, Los Angeles; Made in L.A. 2020, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; Tai Kwun, Hong Kong; Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva; Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin; de Young Museum, San Francisco; and Knockdown Center, New York. Dean has delivered lectures and presentations at various universities and institutions, including Harvard University, Cambridge; Yale University, New Haven; California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Santa Clarita; The Studio Museum, Harlem; MMK Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt; Serpentine Galleries, London; New Museum, New York; DIA Art Foundation, New York. Dean’s writings have appeared in several publications, a selection of which are available as Bad Infinity, published by Sternberg Press in 2023.

LINK: Aria Dean

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: CINEMATIC AND VIDEOGAME ARCHITECTURE MARCH (DEADLINE APRIL 4 2025)

The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
22 Gordon Street
London WC1H 0QB
United Kingdom
Hours: Monday-Sunday 7am-10pm,
Saturday-Sunday 9am-6pm

press release

Applications are now open for the 2025 intake of the Cinematic and Videogame Architecture MArch course at the Bartlett School of Architecture, based at UCL’s brand new UCL East campus.

The first programme of its kind in the UK, the Cinematic and Videogame Architecture MArch course teaches students to employ innovative architectural design methods using cinematic, animation and gaming technologies. Students will critically situate their work in relation to new developments in time-based digital media and how they shape our culture, identity and politics.

What is the programme’s focus
Architecture has a long history of acting as an underlying structuring device for both film and videogames. From the construction of film sets to developments in film compositing techniques and innovations in computer graphics, the depiction of space has been a key challenge in arriving at our contemporary media landscape of film and videogames. In turn, the narrative and storytelling power of time-based and interactive media are reshaping not only how architecture is constructed and represented, but also how it is conceived and experienced.

How will the programme be delivered
Taught by internationally renowned experts in cutting-edge digital technologies, the programme is based at UCL’s new campus, UCL East, occupying new state-of-the-art design studio and computation facilities alongside shared specialist media and workshop spaces. The programme is founded on a strong and experimental practice-led studio element, where practical learning is supported by robust theoretical research. Students engage with theoretical concepts through lectures and introductory design projects, supported by digital skills modules.

This cross-disciplinary approach allows students to test ideas and invent new research methods, leading to the production of architectural design projects that are developed and realised through films, video games and hybrid digital-physical environments.

The programme is led by Prof Penelope Haralambidou and Dr Luke Caspar Pearson. Penelope’s teaching and research employ an innovative practice-led methodology that uses, drawing, modelling, digital film and immersive environments to investigate spatial culture. Luke is co-founder of You+Pea, a design research studio working between architecture and videogames that collaborates with cultural and educational institutions alongside industry clients, and is the co-author of Videogame Atlas (Thames & Hudson, 2022).

How will the programme equip people for future careers
Students gain technical skills and explore time-based, storytelling and interactive media as new platforms for engaging with the design and production of space, from the domestic to the urban. Graduates develop advanced skills applicable in the fields of architecture and architectural visualisation, and gain expertise that can form the foundation for careers in immersive environments, film and videogame industries. Through regular visits by academic and industry experts, graduates will  understand how to position and present their work for future careers in many different creative disciplines.

Who should apply
We are looking for applications from graduates and professionals from architecture, but also from other backgrounds – including design, filmmaking, film studies, anthropology, geography, fine art, videogame design, graphic design, animation and computer-generated imagery design – who are interested in studying the relationship between architecture, cinema and videogames, and show evidence of a strong record both academically and/or in practice.

Applications close on April 4, 2025 for applicants requiring a UK visa, and August 29, 2025 for applicants not requiring a UK visa.

LINK: Cinematic and Videogame Architecture 2025 program

EVENT: LUKE CASPAR PEARSON (NOVEMBER 8 - 21 2024, ONLINE)

Reyner Banham Loves Los Santos

digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 5’ 15”, 2016, United Kingdom

created by Luke Caspar Pearson

vral.org

 

Reyner Banham Loves Los Santos reimagines Banham’s original exploration of Los Angeles through the virtual lens of Grand Theft Auto V. In this adaptation sui generis of a 1972 BBC documentary, Banham’s vision of a city defined by mobility over monumentality is amplified within the sprawling, simulated metropolis of Los Santos. Just as Banham embraced the freeways and fluidity of LA’s urban fabric, Los Santos takes this mobility to an extreme, where the ability to instantly commandeer any vehicle represents a new kind of urban experience, rooted in speed, freedom, and fluid motion. Luke Caspar Pearson’s machinima reflects Banham’s fascination with the paradoxes of the city – its chaotic structure and capacity for personal liberation. The narrative juxtaposes Banham’s celebration of LA’s automotive culture with the lawless nature of Los Santos, transforming Banham’s intellectual engagement with LA into a playful yet critical examination of the intersections between urbanism, architecture, and video game spaces.

Luke Caspar Pearson is a London-based architect, academic, and co-founder of the design research practice You+Pea, where he explores the intersection of video game technologies and architectural design. As an Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, he founded and co-directs the new Cinematic and Videogame Architecture MArch programme, emerging from his work with the innovative Videogame Urbanism studio. His research focuses on how digital tools can engage new audiences with architectural design. Luke is the co-author of Videogame Atlas: Mapping Interactive Worlds (Thames & Hudson, 2022) and his work has been widely published in journals such as eflux Architecture, Design Studies and Architectural Research Quarterly.  His design projects have been featured in exhibitions at venues like the Royal Institute of British Architects, Somerset House.

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CALL FOR PAPERS: ARTS AND GAMES (DEADLINE: DECEMBER 13 2024)

The fields of arts and games are continuously and progressively intersecting, creating hybrids and cultural frames, mutually influencing each other. This is not new; arts have been using games as subject and material for millennia from depictions of athletes in ancient Greek sculpture to Yoko Ono’s All White Chess Set (1966) and from Caravaggio’s Cardsharps (1594) to Harold Hejazi’s game performance series Adventures of Harriharri. Weiqi, or as it is named in the West, Go, was one of the four arts a scholar should master in ancient China. However, games are increasingly recognized as having artistic qualities after the cultural ascendancy of digital games.  

Games as a form of expression, and gaming as a performative practice, hold significant artistic potential. They are used for artistic self-expression, both within recognized art worlds and in alternative and emerging fan-based art practices across different forms of media. These renegade art worlds challenge traditional curatorial practices. Popular triple-A digital games have been placed within artistic discourse and practice, both when existing games are used as platforms for artistic interventions, such as Joseph DeLappe’s dead-in-iraq (2006-2011) or Brent Watanabe’s San Andreas Streaming Deer Cam (2016), but also in the aesthetic experience they create without additional modding.  

The cross-pollination between arts and games is particularly strong right now. Art history has been a constant inspiration for visual and sound design in games, establishing structures of expectation and shaping player experience through points of reference, or by directly utilizing various aesthetics such as, surrealism, renaissance paintings, and medieval illumination. Furthermore, interest in what games can offer art practices has been strengthening. Features such as structured participation, instruction-based performance, 8-bit aesthetics, virtual co-presence, exploration, and simulation have made games a significant part of contemporary media arts. From JODI’s Untitled Game series (1996-2001) to Zach Gage’s Lose/Lose (2009), Harun Farocki’s Serious Games I-IV (2011), or Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s The Lack: I Knew Your Voice before You Spoke (2023), digital games have become medium, topic, and site of artistic practice. Similarly, live action role-playing is used both as a generative engine in visual arts, like in Brody Condon’s Twentyfivefold Manifestations(2008), and as the heart of the performance as in Pihla Lehtinen’s Do Crime (2019) or Signa’s Das 13. Jahr (2023).  

Arts and Games are coming together all kinds of ways. Games are also a way for art museums to show their collections or offer alternative paths to art, with games about art, artists, and art worlds – like Reiner Knizia’s Modern Art (1992). The aesthetics and functions of digital games also allow for idea-historical perspectives. By pointing out the intersections and parallels between experience, design, and reception of digital games and historical phenomena of arts (ranging from painting and literature to theater and architecture) entirely new perspectives on existing works of art can be enabled. 

To play around with all this, the spring seminar of Game Research Lab wants to carve a space for a discussion of artistic approaches to games and ludic approaches to art. We are not looking to discuss if games fit in the arts, but how the multiple fields of games and arts intersect and tickle each other. As always, we encourage interesting interpretations of ‘games’ and ‘arts’.  

With all that in mind, the list of possible topics includes but is not limited to: 

• • (Playing) games as expressive forms 
  • Artistry of games 
  • Games in art 
  • Artistic vibes in games 
  • Art on games 
  • Games as material and/or medium in arts 
  • Curating/exhibiting/presenting game art 
  • Application of theoretical and methodological approaches from the field of art practice and theory 
  • Aesthetics and experience 
  • Curatorial practices/research in relation to games 
  • Diegetic Art in games 
  • Games as art 
  • Artistic appreciation of games 
  • Artistic praxis in games 
  • Games in the cultural heritage sector 

Seminar information 

Arts and Games is the 21st annual spring seminar organised by the Tampere University Game Research Lab. The seminar emphasises work-in-progress submissions, and we strongly encourage submitting late-breaking results, working papers, as well as submissions from graduate and PhD researchers. The purpose of the seminar is to have peer-to-peer discussions and thereby provide support in refining and improving research work in this area. The seminar is organised in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies and Games as Art Center. 

The papers to be presented will be chosen based on extended abstract review. Full papers are distributed prior to the event to all participants, in order to facilitate discussion. There will be two invited expert commentators to provide feedback on the papers. 

The seminar is potentially looking into partnering with a publisher so that the best papers would be invited to be further developed into publication. In the past, we have collaborated with e.g. Analog Game Studies, Games and Culture, Games: Research and Practice, International Journal of Role-Playing, Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, Simulation & Gaming, and ToDiGRA journals. 

The seminar will be held at Tampere University, Finland, on 26-27 March 2025. The event is free of charge. 

Submission guidelines 

The papers will be selected for presentation based on extended abstracts of 500–1000 words (plus references). Abstracts should be delivered in PDF format. Full paper guidelines will be provided with the notification of acceptance. 

Our aim is that all participants can familiarise themselves with the papers in advance. Therefore, the maximum length for a full paper is 5000 words (plus references). The seminar presentations should encourage discussion, instead of repeating the information presented in the papers. Every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed for 20 minutes. 

Submissions should be sent through this form.

All information will be updated on the seminar website: https://springseminar.org 

Organisers can be contacted at: [email protected]  

Important dates 

• • Abstract deadline: 13 December 2024 
  • Notification of acceptance: 10 January 2025 
  • Full paper deadline: 5 March 2025 
  • Seminar dates: 26-27 March 2025 

 Organising team

Aska Mayer, Mark Maletska, Leland Masek, Jaakko Stenros, Essi Taino, & Heikki Tyni 

LINK: Arts and Games Seminar