GAMESCENES

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: PHOTOGRAPHY IN VIRTUAL CULTURE (DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 18 2023)

Following the first successful Virtual Photography Symposium held at the University of Westminster, London in 2022, the University of Westminster are delighted to announce the call for contributions to a new International Conference Photography in Virtual Culture in May 2024. The conference is organised in collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery who will co-host the event. The aim is to develop a communal space for discussion, forming critiques, thinking and making what can be called ‘virtual photography’.

The last decade has seen a clear shift in the operational frameworks for the production, dissemination and consumption of photographs in contemporary computerised societies. The representational function of the medium is progressively converted to algorithmic and generative processes through computerized connectivity and control. Recent developments of AI systems and expanded reality technologies have exponentially changed the possibilities for image making and the ways in which photographic images might be created and used within, and beyond, virtual space. While this might be exciting times for creators, thinkers and developers, it is also a pivotal moment in the history of the photographic medium, with debates about its materiality, social function and essence taking place.

We invite proposals presenting the following subjects:
• AI, Generative and Synthetic Images
• Digital Communities and Critical practices
• Datasets and Ethics
• Computation and Virtual Space
• Theories of Virtuality
• Digital Labour and Environments
• Sexuality and Vision
• Games and Narratives
• Photography Education
• Virtual Image Systems

We invite conference papers in the form of 20-minute presentations, talks, collaborations, critical essays and visual arguments, addressing any of the above or related topics. We also invite proposals for participatory workshops and demonstrations.

Please send a 200-word proposal, alongside a 50-word biography of each participant, by no later than 18th September 2023 to: [email protected]

If you are proposing a practice or artist talk, please include relevant examples of your work and a link to the project when possible. Selected proposals will be announced in October. All presented papers will be considered for publication in an edited volume.

Unfortunately, we are unlikely to be able fund any travel, visa or accommodation expenses. Registration fees, lunch and refreshments will be covered for participant speakers by the organisers. We plan to hold the event at both the University of Westminster (Regent St Campus) and The Photographers’ Gallery in London. A fee is available to speakers/performers/workshop leaders who aren’t in institutionally-affiliated or in full-time employment.

Should you have any questions, please contact:
[email protected]

Download the call as a .pdf

Conference Convenors
Dr. Paula Gortázar, Lecturer in Photography, University of Westminster Prof. David Bate, Professor of Photography, University of Westminster
In partnership with Digital Programme at The Photographers’ Gallery

LINK: Unthinking Photography

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: GAIA 2023 (DEADLINE: JAN 30 2023)

The third Game Arts International Assembly will be happening June 5-7th, 2023 in Toronto, Canada. With a participant cap of 20, GAIA is an intimate symposium for game art curators and game community organizers to level up their professional development and connect with their international peers. In addition to on site talks sharing personal experiences, playful workshops, and practical sessions, GAIA will include field trips to different locations in the city.

Our previous editions have included talks about illegal LAN games in Havana neighbourhoods, workshops on finding funding to showcase games, panels on challenging the hegemony of English in the industry, and the collective creation of resources like the Game Arts Curators Kit. Check out our previous programming schedules (2019, 2021) for more.

GAIA is also part of the inaugural Toronto Games Week which will feature a variety of parties, launches and other game culture events organized by the local community between June 1-7th. 

Deadline is midnight EDT on Jan. 30th, 2023.

Apply here (Thanks to Jim Munroe and Marie LeBlanc Flanagan)

Read more about GAIA

CALL FOR ARTWORKS: MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL 2023 (DEADLINE: DECEMBER 30 2022)

The sixth edition of the MACHINIMA FILM FESTIVAL will take place in hybrid form, both online and in situ (Milan, Italy) between March 19 - 26 2023

Filmmakers and video artists engaged in the practice of appropriating, repurposing, and remixing video games are encouraged to send us their work for consideration. All submissions will be judged by an international panel of jurors comprising scholars, curators, and critics. A Critics' Award will be awarded to the most groundbreaking work.

Screenings of selected machinima will be curated around different themes and presented in different sections. The most interesting submissions are those which seek to capture or highlight a specific facet of contemporary life, from politics to art, from violence to creativity, from technology to ideology, through the aesthetic lenses of digital gaming.

The deadline for submissions is December 30, 2022

The full program will be announced in early March 2023

The guidelines and submission rules are available here

click here to begin the submission process

LINK: Milan Machinima Festival

CFP: ARTISTS’ GAMES: CRITICAL AND CREATIVE APPROACHES IN NEW MEDIA ART (DEADLINE: MARCH 7 2022)

Psychasthenia Studio, Psychasthenia 3: Dupes, interactive, 3D videogame art project, 2018

Artists’ Games: Critical and Creative Approaches in New Media Art

Moderated by Victoria Szabo & Joyce Rudinsky

Date/Time: Friday March 25, 2022 / 20:00 GMT

5 MINUTE LIGHTING TALK PRESENTERS WANTED:

**Submit a Proposal to Present a Lightning Talk** by March 7, 2022

Session Description

This session explores critical and creative approaches to video games in new media art. We are interested in both artists’ sharing their own work and in critical insights on the field, and in engaging from global and diverse perspectives. Historical and contemporary approaches considered, as well as future forecasts. Platform-based, pc, mobile, web, VR, social, hybrid and other formats and modalities welcome as long as they engage in with games as new media art.

• How are artists using games in their practice?
• What prior and current artistic forms, precedents, and analogues do they build upon or change?
• What distinct opportunities (and challenges) do game spaces, formats, technologies, and practices present for graphical and interactive creativity?
• How does the emerging world of artists’ games intersect with that of other media forms?
• How do artists’ games relate to the larger new media art world? Other creative and cultural communities and contexts?
• Where do educational, commercial, and activist games overlap with the worlds of artists’ games?

Where will artists’ games go in the future?

How do we/should we exhibit, archive, document artists’ games?

Submit a Proposal to Present a Lightning Talk** by March 7, 2022

Sign up for the Zoom Discussion** to take place March 25, 2022 at 4PM EST

Moderators

Joyce Rudinsky is a new media artist. Her research explores various ways in which new media changes how we understand and make sense of our everyday lives as we navigate through an information-based society. Her current work with the art collective Psychasthenia Studio, uses interactive, procedural environments to investigate the relationships between psychological conditions and culture. Rudinsky is a Professor at the University of North Carolina. 

Victoria Szabo is a digital humanities and computational media scholar/practitioner. Her work explores critical and creative approaches to media and computation with an emphasis on interactive and immersive archives and exhibitions focused around urban history, material cultures, and imagined worlds. She is a Research Professor of Visual and Media Studies at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA. She is Chair of the Digital Arts Community (DAC) for ACM SIGGRAPH. 

Rudinsky and Szabo are the principals of Psychasthenia Studio, an art collective based in North Carolina that uses new media and interactive, procedural environments to investigate the relationships between psychological conditions and culture. Psychasthenia Studio is an interdisciplinary project with members from the humanities, arts, and technology fields. Visit http://psychasthenia-studio.com for more information about us and our projects.

SPARKS is a monthly series sponsored by the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community. To learn more about our activities, visit us at http://dac.siggraph.org.

Thank you Kieran! (via the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community Mailing List)

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: A MAZE. / BERLIN 2021: HYPER HYBRID (DEADLINE: APRIL 30 2021)

10th International Games and Playful Media Festival from July 21 – 24, 2021.

Award submissions are open now, until April 30, 2021.

HYPER Birthday, A MAZE. / Berlin!

Press release:

One of the few things that are sure this year? A MAZE. / Berlin is celebrating its 10th birthday with a Hyper Hybrid edition from July 21 - 24, 2021. For this year’s edition, A MAZE. has booked Urban Spree as the festival studio location. The festival is planned in a completely digital version, but if smaller gatherings are allowed this summer, there will be a beautiful space for the 10 years birthday party of A MAZE. / Berlin:

Hyper Birthday. <3

As in the past years, A MAZE. / Berlin invites game designers and artists to submit their games or playful installations until April 30, 2021. People with expertise and interest can also register for the Selection Committee, which helps reviewing all entries. For all the details and the submission, click here

The award show will be streamed live from Berlin on July 23, 8pm. The winner is selected by an interdisciplinary, international and 100% independent jury. A MAZE. / Berlin extended and changed awards in the many years since, the categories are now: “Most Amazing Award”, “Human Human Machine Award”, “Long Feature Award”, “Digital Moment Award”, “Explorer Award” and “Audience Award”. Plus: This is going to be the 4th year of our Diversity Award, the “Humble New Talent Award” in collaboration with Humble Original.

"Since 10 years, A MAZE. is nominating artistic creations from around the globe. Works that underline the rise of interactive arthouse productions. All the A MAZE. Award winners create milestones in the history of independent games and playful media. We love to experience works based on meaning, experiments, story, expression, change, interdisciplinarity, social/cultural/political impact, aesthetics and fun,” says Thorsten S. Wiedemann, artistic director of A MAZE.

Matthias Löwe, head of the A MAZE. / Berlin Awards, adds: “Starting this year, we also want to provide a spotlight to creators who usually can't enter the contest with our new community- sponsored supporter tickets. In addition to better accessibility, we hope to showcase even more hidden gems this way.”

TIMELINE A MAZE. / BERLIN AWARD SUBMISSION

Mar 19: Start of Submissions and Jury-Registration Apr 15: Judging starts

Apr 30: Submission Deadline May 31: Judging ends

Jun 14: Announcement Nominees Jun 15: Final Judges starting reviews Jul 21: A MAZE. / Berlin starts

Jul 23: Award ceremony
 
Submit here: - Submission for the 10th edition of the A MAZE. Awards are open until April 30, 2021

A MAZE. / Berlin 2021 is funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and part of gamesweekberlin. Thanks to our sponsors and partners Humble Original, Game - Verband der deutschen Game- Branche, Kickstarter, Leibniz Association.

A MAZE. is a unique and cultural investigating international platform for games and playful media that invites professionals and creatives from various fields to exchange their knowledge and visions, presenting their projects, playing, making contacts to collaborate on future projects. The festival A MAZE. / Berlin represents games beyond the mainstream and celebrates the art-form and the rise of arthouse. 

LINK: A MAZE

CFP: WELL PLAYED JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE CFP: PLAYABLE THEATRE (MAY 31 2020)

Well Played Journal Special Issue Cfp: Playable Theatre 

Edited by Celia Pearce & Nick Fortugno

The rising popularity of immersive theatre works such as Third Rail’s Then She Fell and Punch Drunk’s Sleep No More, has given rise to new hybrid forms of live entertainment that combine aspects of games and theatre. These “playable theatre” works draw extensively from digital games, Big Games, tabletop and live action roleplaying (LARPs) combined with theatrical conventions and methods to create fully immersive, participatory live theatrical events in which the audience plays a substantive role in the experience. We use the term “playable theatre” to distinguish works that engage meaningful audience agency from more passive forms of “promenade” theatre where the audience’s role is strictly navigational. Works of this type include a wide range of genres, scales and contexts, from highly theatrical “Nordic larping” traditions, to theme park experiences, to “puzzle plays” that integrate aspects of escape rooms and performance, to site-specific and pervasive/progressive live events. They can also draw from a variety of theatrical methods such as improv, process drama, and devised theatre. The rise of these works has been accompanied by a rediscovery of Pine & Gilmour’s concept of the “Experience Economy,” spurred by scientific research that people who spend money on experiences are happier than those who spend it on goods. The aim of this special issue is to explore critical and practical aspects of this emerging form and develop a shared vocabulary across disciplines to advance both scholarship and innovation in this emerging art form. 

For this special issue we invite experiential play-throughs, theoretical papers, critical analyses, and post-mortems by practitioners, across domains from around the world, that explore the many facets of live, interactive experiences. As an interdisciplinary issue, we welcome researchers and creators from theatre, digital and analog game studies, performance studies and related disciplines.

ETC Press is accepting submissions for this special issue of the Well Played journal.

All submissions are 31 May 2020

All submissions and questions should be sent to:

well-played (at) lists (dot) andrew (dot) cmu (dot) edu

The Well Played Journal is a forum for in-depth close readings of video games that parse out the various meanings to be found in the experience of playing a game. It is a reviewed journal open to submissions that will be released on a regular basis.

 

Contributors are encouraged to analyze sequences in a game in detail in order to illustrate and interpret how the various components of a game can come together to create a fulfilling playing experience unique to this medium. Through contributors, the journal will provide a variety of perspectives on the value of games.

 

The goal of the journal is to continue developing and defining a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis. By inviting contributors to look closely at video games and the experience of playing them, we hope to expand the discussion, and show how games are well played in a variety of ways.

 

The ETC Press is an academic and open-source publishing imprint that distributes its work in print, electronic and digital form. Inviting readers to contribute to and create versions of each publication, ETC Press fosters a community of collaborative authorship and dialogue across media. ETC Press represents an experiment and an evolution in publishing, bridging virtual and physical media to redefine the future of publication.

 

LINK: Well Played Journal

OPEN CALL: EXPLORER AWARD AT A MAZE. THE INTERNATIONAL GAMES & PLAYFUL MEDIA FESTIVAL (JAN 1 - FEB 2 2020)

 

Heads up! A MAZE. just launched a call for submission which may be of interest to you all:

 

Ok. First of all, you probably already know that A MAZE. 9th International Games and Playful Media Festival takes place in Berlin from April 22-25, 2020, in Berlin, Germany.

 

Now, the organizers are looking for creative, playful works, and crazy experiments located at the intersection of gaming, video art, and performance that could to compete in the Explorer Award category. Machinima perfectly fits this description, for instance. But also installations, interactive experiences, VR or in-game photography... You name it.

 

Full description below:

Explorer Award

"Go, where nobody has gone before! This is the award for all forms of experiences beyond the boundaries of contemporary ways to play or develop games. Here, we are exploring alternative controllers, interactive installations, creative coding experiments, robotics and tech performances, as well as interdisciplinary teams, collaborations with science, makers, engineers, researchers, theater and writers."

 

The submission fee is 30€ and even if artists don't get nominated, they will receive a 25% discount on the festival ticket and will be asked first for spots in the Open Screens program of the exhibition, so that everyone has the chance to exhibit. Every entry will be visible on the website too. It is also possible to register as Selection Committee to review the submitted works - Here a 25% discount is given out as well, for everybody who reviews 5 or more entries.

Read more about this category by clicking the link below.

 

LINK: EXPLORER AWARD at A MAZE.

OPEN CALL: GAME ON ON! EL ARTE EN JUEGO (DEADLINE: APRIL 30 2019, ARGENTINA)

Game on! El arte en juego is an art games exhibition founded in 2009 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Game on! Exhibits artgames, experimental games, non-games, alternative controllers, playable media and a wide range of independent video games that explores the inner logic of video games, that deconstruct, re-shape and reformulate the very same notion of video games. Game On! explores the possibilities of interaction, cyber narrative and playability. The exhibition is always accompanied by a series of activities that include performances, workshops and round-tables. This year and as a celebration for its 10th anniversary Game On! will be presenting the first edition of GAIA in co-productio with GAIN. GAIA is the first think tank for the international game arts ecosystem.

From November 22 to November 30th 2019 Game On! El arte en juego, the 6th international art games and playful media exhibition, invites general public and professionals from the fields of new media art and video games to explore the state of the art of independent, artistic and experimental video games. This year the exhibit will be held in San Martin Cultural Center, during #NoviembreElectrónico, Buenos Aires main cultural and technological festival

LINK: Game on! El arte en juego

Game On! El arte en juego es la primera exhibición en Argentina en explorar las relaciones entre arte, videojuegos y sociedad.

Es una exhibición de videojuegos independientes que exploran las lógicas del dispositivo mismo, lo deconstruyen, cuestionan y reformulan. Cada edición está integrada por una selección de piezas que oscilan entre las categorías de non-games, juegos experimentales, serious games y artgames. Se presentan también instalaciones lúdicas interactivas que indagan en los cruces de interactividad y juego. Y por supuesto controles alternativos que proponen nuevos modos de juego. No puede faltar el ámbito de las experiencias en realidad virtual que exploran los límites de la narratividad e interactividad. El objetivo es navegar por los distintos formatos que el videojuego puede adoptar hoy cuando decide adoptar un tono experimental y artístico.

La exhibición es siempre acompañada por un programa de extensión que se ocupa de el aspecto académico: ensayos, tesis, investigaciones y discusiones sobre game studies. En esta ocasión y como parte de la celebración de su décimo aniversario Game On! presenta la primera edición de GAIA, un think tank dedicado a la comunidad internacional de game art (curadores, productores y gestores de comunidad especializados en videojuegos y cultura) GAIA es una co-producción de Game On! y GAIN.

Esta nueva edición de Game On! El arte en juego tendrá lugar entre el 22 y 30 de noviembre 2019, en el Centro Cultural San Martín dentro de #NoviembreElectrónico, el evento insigne de Buenos Aires que invita al diálogo entre artes electrónicas y cultura digital, que ha reunido a más de 110.000 participantes en sus ediciones anteriores.

LINK: Game on! El arte en juego

CFP. VIDEO GAME ART READER ISSUE 3: OVERCLOCKING (DEADLINE: MARCH 29 2019)

Video Game Art Reader, issue 3, Call for Papers

OVERCLOCKING

This issue proposes overclocking as a foundational metaphor for how games are produced and experienced today, and the temporal compressions and extensions of the many historical lineages that have shaped game art and culture. In the same way that a computer user might overclock the processor of their machine to achieve results beyond its intended use, how can video game art studies overclock its received historical boundaries and intervene on current video game practices that are accelerating past their limits? Might overclocking practices also produce strain and wear on video games and their stakeholders in a variety of ways that need to be identified and understood?

The Video Game Art Reader (VGAR) is currently accepting submissions that critically analyze video game art at the limits of temporality: through long historical vectors, across significant investments of lived human experience, and in terms of other considerations of time.

Though digital gaming emerged in the last half of the 20th century, papers in this issue can draw connections between games and a wide variety of transhistorical and transmedia influences.

Papers may ask: Do the deep histories in which video games can be framed serve as resources for the equally deep contributions of video game laborers and video game audiences to our current epoch? How do video games spread themselves--through the labor of production or the experience of gameplay--over excessive amounts of time? If we interrogate the materials, conventions, and aesthetics of video games of the past and present, what kind of deep history might emerge? If we look at the aggregate amount of time spent producing video games, what kind of systemic practices emerge? If we look at the amount of time a player base applies to a single game title, what can we learn about the game as well as the lives of those who play it?

Possible topics and questions include but are not limited to:

• Expansions of, or interventions into, theories of media archaeology. How might we expand a media archaeology of video game aesthetics, genres, or modes of play, and what do these histories help us understand about the present?

• As cultural critics, how do we respond to the overclocked demands of video game labor across all levels of production, from art games to indie to AAA?

• How do we reconcile the extensive amount of play time demanded by certain games, and the overwhelming volume of games available, with the limited attention (or life) spans of audiences?

• What kinds of historical grounding can be identified in the visual culture that precedes and informs the current video game epoch, and what are the conceptual underpinnings of these choices?

• How are the conventions of contemporary video game art distributed across digital and non-digital media?

Deadline for Submissions is March 29th, 2019

All submissions and questions should be sent to: tfunk (at) vgagallery (dot) org. For more information and formatting guidelines, visit:

Submission Guidelines

LINK: Video Game Art Reader

OPEN CALL: GAME ARTS INTERNATIONAL ASSEMBLY (DEADLINE: FEB 28 2019)

The Game Arts International Assembly (GAIA) is an annual in-person event that provides a chance for people in the game arts organizing and curation community to discuss their challenges and share information. The first one is in November 2019 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the second is planned for 2020 in Toronto, Canada.

This edition assembly hosts are Luján Oulton director of Game on! El arte en juego (Buenos Aires) and Jim Munroe, co-founder of Hand Eye Society (Toronto) and GAIN. The confirmed key notes are Lorenzo Pilia from A MAZE./Talk and Play (Berlin) and Marie Foulston from Wild Rumpus and the V&A Museum (London). We will be announcing three more international keynotes from established guests later in the year.

This edition will host a maximum of 20 participants. There will be 5 keynotes and up to 15 participants will be selected by the Assembly hosts.

GAIA will consist of:
- Three days of personal talks, playful events, and roundtables;
- local arts experts from outside the games community sharing their knowledge;
- interactive and playful sessions generating ideas to address big issue problems;
- bonding/integration activities designed for the participants, including visits to local game developers studios, to museums and to local cultural venues and activities.

This edition assembly hosts are Luján Oulton director of Game on! El arte en juego (Buenos Aires) and Jim Munroe, co-founder of Hand Eye Society (Toronto) and GAIN. The confirmed key notes are Lorenzo Pilia from A MAZE./Talk and Play (Berlin) and Marie Foulston from Wild Rumpus and the V&A Museum (London). We will be announcing three more international keynotes from established guests later in the year.

Apply here

Deadline is midnight, February 28th 2019.

Accepted applicants will receive free admission to the Assembly and all its activities, as well as a pass to the GAME ON festival prior to GAIA running from 22-30 November at San Martín Cultural Center.

 

LINK: Game Arts International Assembly (English and Spanish)