[ecrea] CFP: Interactive Animation and Video Games (Anifest 2019)

Please find below the following CFP for the March 2019 symposium 
"Interactive Animation and Video Games", held as part of the annual 
Anifest festival (https://www.canterburyanifest.com/) at Canterbury 
Christ Church University.

*_
_*

*CFP: Interactive Animation and Video Games**- **Friday 8^th March 2019, 
Canterbury Christ Church University, Augustine House, Room AH3.31*

***A one-day research symposium hosted by Canterbury Christ Church 
University that will take place as part of Canterbury Anifest 2019***

**

*Conference organisers:*Joanna Samuel (Canterbury Christ Church 
University)and Dr Christopher Holliday (King’s College London)

*Keynote speaker:* Professor Aylish Wood (University of Kent)

As definitions of animation expand to encompass a wide range of 
image-making technologies and multimedia practices, the question of 
interactivity has supported recent critical excursions into the medium’s 
digital present as much as its potential future. The increasing 
popularity of virtual and augmented realities speaks to the growing 
prominence of interactive engagements between spectator and animated 
artefact. Whether superimposing computer-generated images onto the real 
world or simulating entirely digital realms, the collapse of real and 
fictional animated spaces has promised new kinds of immersive virtual 
experience. The educational potential of state-of-the-art augmented 
reality displays in museums and art galleries has extended the project 
of such “interactive animation” even further. Visitors are able to 
navigate virtual reality, interact with 3-D scans of curated objects and 
explore innovative digital spaces as part of increasingly immersive 
learning experiences. Yet within these emergent traditions of 
animation’s many participatory modes, the vicariousness of the medium’s 
‘interactivity’ might also be traced back through histories of moving 
images to earlier animated media. Among animation’s broad interactive 
identity, video games have remained a particularly popular form of 
interactive entertainment since the 1970s, with a wealth of more recent 
scholarly publications focused on the video game medium that theorize 
its complex interactive (often goal-oriented) narratives and 
three-dimensional digital environments through which players must 
progress. The interactive nature of video games bridges elements of 
design with player-character objectives, changing the traditionally 
passive spectator/viewer into agents that interact directly with the 
game world. “Interactive animation” is ultimately an expansive field of 
study, one that offers rich potential for thinking about both the 
methods and histories of animated communication, intervention and 
visualisation.

This one-day interdisciplinary symposium invites proposals from 
academics and practitioners for twenty-minute papers, 5-minute 
micro-talks or video essays that explore the themes of interactive 
animation and video games. Topics include, but are not limited to:

  * Digital art installations, public displays and co-creative spaces
    (museums, galleries)
  * Virtual puppetry and live performance
  * Interactive hardware (head-mounted equipment, digital displays,
    smartphones, tablets, game controllers)
  * VR and augmented reality systems
  * Artificial intelligence (AI) engines
  * Embodiment and phenomenological encounters
  * Software studies
  * Animation studies and questions of interactivity
  * Histories of new media, digital animation and computer graphics
  * Video game theory and scholarship
  * Gaming practice
  * Cyberworlds, open worlds and world-building
  * Video gameplay, full motion video (FMV) and cut/event scenes
  * Video game design and style
  * Video game studios, series and franchises
  * Intersections between video games and other art forms (cinema,
    painting, sculpture)
  * ‘Interactive’ fan cultures
  * Interactivity and reception studies

Speakers are invited to submit a *250-word abstract* and *short 
biography* to Joanna Samuel ((joanna.samuel /at/ canterbury.ac.uk)) and 
Christopher Holliday ((christopher.holliday /at/ kcl.ac.uk)). The deadline for 
proposals is *Friday 16^th * *November 2018*. Please do get in touch if 
you wish to discuss possible topics or have any questions regarding the 
symposium.


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