[Commlist] CFP: Video Game Art Reader - Issue 4

Video Game Art Reader Issue 4
Call for Papers

Video Game Art Reader is accepting submissions through March 20th!
 The Video Game Art Reader (VGAR) is currently accepting submissions 
from practitioners, researchers, and educators for its four issue. The 
theme for this Issue is Overclocking. A detailed overview of the scope 
this theme is included below. If interested, please submit your draft 
article to Tiffany Funk at the address provided below no later than 
midnight on March 20th. Late submissions will be accepted at the 
discretion of the editors.
VGAR is an annual, peer-reviewed, art history journal published through 
the Video Game Art Gallery. VGAR’s primary aim is to facilitate 
conversation and exploration of video game art through an inclusive 
discourse about the far-reaching influence of video games on history, 
society, and culture.

Sincerely,
Michael Reed
Managing Editor
Video Game Art Reader
Issue 4 Theme: OVERCLOCKING

In computing, overclocking refers to the common practice of increasing 
the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the 
manufacturer. While the concept is seductive—buy the slower, lower-cost 
central processing unit (CPU), accelerate the clock speed, and presto! 
you have a cheap, high-end processor—overclocking may destroy your CPU, 
motherboard, and system memory, or irreparably corrupt your hard drive 
(voiding your warranty being the least of your problems).

This issue of the Video Game Art Reader (VGAR) proposes overclocking as 
a metaphor for how games are produced and experienced today, and the 
temporal compressions and expansions 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 understandings 
of video game practices that are accelerating past their limits? Might 
overclocking practices also produce strain on video games and their 
stakeholders in ways that need to be identified and understood?

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.

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 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 paradigm, 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 20, 2019.
All submissions and questions should be sent to: tfunk (at) vgagallery 
(dot) org.

For more information and formatting guidelines, visit Video Game Art 
Reader @ https://www.videogameartgallery.com/vga-reader

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