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INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: 'CREATING SECOND LIVES: READING AND WRITING
VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES'
First call for papers:
Games and virtual environments are playing an increasingly powerful
role in Western entertainment and narrative culture. Of particular
importance are the constant re- and de-construction of the embodied
playing self and the post-industrialist, customisable fluidity of
personal and social identity.This interdisciplinary conference will
shed light on how virtual communities are ?read? and ?written?, i.e.
constructed textually through linguistic and semiotic en- and
decoding, by producers and receivers of video and massively
multiplayer online games as well as virtual worlds such as Second Life.
The conference?s major intention is to bring together researchers from
a wide range of different areas, who share an interest in semiotics,
stylistics, codification, new media design, 3D programming and
media/cultural studies but do not always speak the same ?language?.
The conference will facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogue and
understanding by providing room and material for discussions between
scholars, scientists and professionals from the gaming industry. By
doing so, it will help experts identify and debate current and future
developments particularly in relation to the textual construction of
subjectivities, communities and ideologies. Date: 24-25 October 2008.
Venue: Bangor University.
Abstracts of 250-300 words are invited on any topic relating to the
following themes and questions:
- How do we ?read? and ?write? virtual communities, i.e. how are
identities, communities and ideologies constructed textually and
discursively in video games and other digital environments?
- How are user identities ?coded into? virtual communities?
- To what extent and to what effect can we apply contemporary
stylistic and semiotic theory and analysis to virtual, interactive
communities?
- How do avatars impersonate networks, communities and societies?
- What are the roles of body and mind in virtual communities? Do they
separate or amalgamate?
- To what extent do we need to revisit the notions of ?virtual?,
?actual? and ?real? in relation to entextualised social and communal
worlds and realities?
- How does and will 3D graphic design contribute ? now and in the
foreseeable future ? to the construction of social identity?
- What programming tools and methodologies are/may be used to create
virtual communities and inter-'personal' relationships?
Keynote speakers will include Prof Espen Aarseth, Co-founder and
Editor-in-Chief of Gamestudies.org and author of Cybertext:
Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, and Fred Hasson, founding CEO of
TIGA, the UK Games Development Trade Association.
Deadline for abstracts: 5 April 2008 (to be sent to <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:a.ensslin@bangor.ac.uk">a.ensslin@bangor.ac.uk</a>)
Conference organisers: NIECI Research Centre for Video Games and
Virtual Environments (Dr Astrid Ensslin, Dr Eben Muse)
For further enquiries, please contact Astrid Ensslin at
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:a.ensslin@bangor.ac.uk">a.ensslin@bangor.ac.uk</a>, or Simon Holloway at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:cos605@bangor.ac.uk">cos605@bangor.ac.uk</a>.
Dr Astrid Ensslin
Lecturer in New Media
National Institute for Excellence in the Creative Industries
Bangor University
LL57 2DG
UK
WWW: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.bangor.ac.uk/creative_industries/astrid.php.en">www.bangor.ac.uk/creative_industries/astrid.php.en</a>
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