[Commlist] STS Italy Call for abstracts [Panel 10 - Searching for the Metaverse. Mapping and disentangling the imaginaries of VR-MR]

Searching for the Metaverse. Mapping and disentangling the imaginaries 
of VR-MR
11-13 June 2025, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
(deadline for submission 3 February 2025)

Keywords: Metaverse; Imaginaries; Narratives of VR/MR; History of VR/MR; 
Politics of VR/MR

After gaining momentum in 2021 with Mark Zuckerberg’s letter 
announcing META, the idea of the metaverse as an interconnected and 
interoperable system has been replaced by different trends in 
technological development and market strategies involving multiple human 
and non-human actors, applications, sociotechnical cultures, and a vast 
array of potential uses and “misuses” of emerging Virtual and Mixed 
Reality technologies (VR/MR). From the original vision of a large, 
interoperable metaverse, we are now witnessing a stage of interpretative 
flexibility in which the final goals and alleged uses of VR/MR are 
constantly challenged, discussed, and renegotiated by various actors at 
both global and national levels. For instance, the Chinese Three-Year 
Action Plan for the Innovative Development of the Metaverse Industry 
(2023-2025) and the EU Initiatives on Virtual Worlds sharply contrast 
with the original concept of the metaverse as portrayed by META, 
offering a concrete alternative imaginary of VRMR. 
Meanwhile, META itself is shifting its narrative and strategy, 
broadening the types of devices and environments that future users might 
buy and inhabit. Simultaneously, the proliferation of devices and 
projects developed by companies and institutional actors contributes to 
a new form of “balkanization” of VR-MR environments, creating a complex 
and fragmented archipelago of “reality media” that parallels the ongoing 
competition among companies, states, and relevant groups in the digital 
market.
  In line with the diverse and non-networked dimensions of contemporary 
imaginaries of the metaverse, this panel aims to gather researchers from 
various disciplines and geographical areas to discuss the narratives, 
social practices, and emerging uses and misuses surrounding past and 
current VR/MR technologies. To disentangle the imaginaries of VR/MR, we 
invite submissions addressing (but not limited to) the following topics:

• The relationships between past and current narratives of VR-MR at 
global and national levels;
• Practices and design of usable spaces in VR-MR, focusing on the logic 
of interoperability and cooperation among tech-makers and users of VR-MR 
artefacts and environments;
• Recurring tropes, fiction/non-fiction narratives, and the 
sociotechnical construction of VR/MR applications, devices, and 
environments;
• Empirical and ethnographic research in situated VR/MR environments and 
communities;
  • Struggles, conflicts, and or cooperation between the visions and 
expectations of corporations, companies, institutions, and user communities;
• VR/MR imaginaries/narratives and marginalized groups or communities;
• Forms of resistance to VR/MR as tools of surveillance and control.

In addition to standard academic presentations, we invite submissions 
presenting artistic and ongoing projects and representations of 
metaversal-VR/MR technologies, narratives, and futures, as well as 
examples and experiences of co-production of VR/MR technologies, 
applications, and environments involving diverse actors such as online 
communities, startups, grassroots movements, civic organizations, and NGOs.


Convenors:
Paolo Bory, Politecnico di Milano
Stefano Bory, University Federico II of Naples
Gianluigi Negro, Università degli Studi di Siena

Link to submit your proposal https://stsitalia.org/submission-2025/ 
<https://stsitalia.org/submission-2025/>


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