[Air-L] Call for Papers: Video Games and Cinema

[melita zajc]

Apologies for cross-posting.

MFRU, International Festival of Computer Arts in Maribor, Slovenia invites papers on video games and cinema, to be presented at the festival's Symposium, taking place on 19. and 20. November 2010. 

The festival
The International Festival of Computer Arts (MFRU), Maribor, Slovenia was established in 1994. At that time, it was the first of the kind in Slovenia and  among the first in the region. During less that two decades, it introduced various new ideas into public knowledge, from interactive art and digital storytelling to body art and robotics. It presented groundbreaking works and ideas of artist and scholars such as Peter Weibel, Allucquére Rosanne Stone, Timothy Druckrey, Stelarc, Brian Goldfarb, Van Gogh TV and Yes Men, and made generally known work of slovene artist such as Edvard Zajec, Vuk Cosic, Igor Stromayer and Laibach. 
Through its various activities, from exhibitions to public performances and lectures, MFRU became the platform for presentation and exchange of innovative ideas  that shaped significantly new media and computer arts theory and artistic practices in Slovenia, the region and the world.

2010
This year, the topic of MFRU is NEW PLAYSCAPES – EXPLORING HORIZONS OF IMAGINATION. The staring point is the importance of transformation for the future of the world, argued for by French philosopher Edgar Morin (Quand un système est incapable de traiter ses problèmes vitaux, il se dégrade, se désintègre ou alors il est capable de susciter un meta-système à même de traiter ses problèmes : il se métamorphose,  whole article available on  http://mneaquitaine.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/eloge-de-la-metamorphose-par-edgar-morin/).
Focus is on computer video games - on the one hand as the critique of the gambling as a guiding principle of contemporary western societies, on the other hand as one of the prime and most generaly accessible ventures of creativity and imagination. Actually, video games in many respects surpassed the movies, from new, non-linear forms of storytelling to modes of narration, complexity of imaginary spaces, techniques of visualizations and representations. 

Symposium - Video Games and Cinema, Re-play
Within the symposium, which has traditionally been one of the pilars of the MFRU, we are going to address this topic by rethinking the changing relationship between Video Games and Cinema. We welcome contributions dealing with various aspects of visualization, narration, user experience and reception, from the perspective of the actual experience of gaming, but also from more general perspective of the virtualization of environment and the role of imagination in contemporary media-scapes. 

Please sent abstracts of 200 words to simpozij at mfru.org by September 15, together with short c.v. and affiliation of the person proposing the paper. Send all inquiries to melita.zajc at gmail.com.