Call for Papers: Understanding Machinima: essays on filmmaking in virtual worlds – deadline 30 August 2010
UNDERSTANDING MACHINIMA:
essays on filmmaking in virtual worlds
Call for Papers
Submissions are invited for an edited book with the working title Understanding Machinima: essays on filmmaking in virtual worlds. Machinima – referring to “filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies” as well as works which use this animation technique, including videos recorded in computer games or virtual worlds (see also http://www.youtube.com/user/machinima) – is challenging the notion of the moving image in numerous media contexts, such as video games, animation, digital cinema and virtual worlds. Machinima’s increasingly dynamic use and construction of images from virtual worlds – appropriated, imported, worked over, re?negotiated, re-configured, re?composed – not only confronts the conception and ontology of the recorded moving image, but also blurs the boundaries between contemporary media forms, definitions and aesthetics, converging filmmaking, animation, virtual world and game development. Even as it poses these theoretical challenges, machinima is expanding as a practice via internet networks and fan-based communities as well as in pedagogical and marketing contexts. In these ways, machinima is also transformative, presenting alternative ways and modes of teaching and commercial promotion, in-game events and, perhaps most significantly, networking cultures and community-building within game, virtual and filmmaking worlds, among others.
Divided into these two sections – machinima (i) in theoretical analysis; and (ii) as practice – this first collection of essays seeks to explore how we can understand machinima in terms of the theoretical challenges it poses as well as its manifestations as a practice. We are primarily concerned with offering critical discussions of its history, theory, aesthetics, media form and social implications, as well as insights into its development and the promise of what it can become. How does machinima fit in the spectrum of media forms? What are the ontological differences between images from machinima and photochemical/digital filmmaking? How does machinima co-opt the affordances of the game engine to provide narrative? How may machinima, developed from the products of game and virtual world marketing, be used as an artistic tool? How is machinima self-reflexive, if at all, of the virtual environments from which they arise? What are the implications of re-deploying these media formats into alternative media forms? How does the open-source economy that currently defines much of global machinima relate it to broader cultural production generally?
In particular, we are looking for essays that address (but not limited to) the following ideas:
* History: context; definitions; culture; relationships to gaming and play; development of technology; hardware and games; archiving of play;
* Theory: image; ontology; time; space; narrative; realism; spectatorship; subjectivity; virtual camera; materiality;
* Aesthetics: poetics; play; visuality; détournement; remix; digital mashup; appropriation; recombinative narratives; audio and visual theory; spatiality; narrative architecture;
* Contemporary media contexts: comparative media; machinima vis-à-vis video games, (digital) cinema, animation, virtual worlds; the visual economy of machinima versus film
* Communities: Machinima as community-based practice and performance; user created content; online publishing; fan (fiction) communities; open source; cultural reflection
* Pedagogy: digital literacy; teaching models and practices; student-centered learning; critical making; collaborative authorship; rhetorics; problem based learning;
* Marketing: crowd sourcing; viral marketing; peer to peer sharing; commercials, trailer promotions; grass roots versus astro turf; serials and sequels.
Please submit a 300 word abstract and a short bio via e-mail to understandingmachinima@gmail.com (NOT the address of the sender above) by 30 August 2010. We expect that final essays should not exceed 7,000 words and be due on 30 December 2010.
Jenna P-S. Ng
James Barrett
HUMlab, Umeå University
Sweden
Jan van Eyck Academie research and production residencies, Maastricht, The Netherlands – deadline 15 April 2010
Call for applications
Deadline: 15 April 2010
Artists, designers and theoreticians are invited to submit research and production proposals to become a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academie. Candidates can either apply with a topic of their own or for a project formulated by the institute itself. In order to realise these projects, the Jan van Eyck offers the necessary made-to-measure artistic, technical and auxiliary preconditions.
The Jan van Eyck Academie is an institute for research and production in the fields of fine art, design and theory. Every year, 48 international researchers realise their individual or collective projects in the artistic and critical environment that is the Jan van Eyck. In doing so, they are advised by a team of artists, designers and theoreticians who have won their spurs globally. The researchers can also avail themselves of facilities that support their projects from first concept to public presentation. All in all, the Jan van Eyck offers artists, designers and theoreticians time and space to do research and realise productions, either about topics of their own choosing or as part of a project formulated by the institute itself.
Multi-Disciplinary Research
Artists, designers and theoreticians at the Jan van Eyck Academie work alongside each other and establish cross-disciplinary exchange. The academy is not led by predetermined leitmotivs. Artists, designers and theoreticians can submit independently formulated proposals for research and/or production in the departments of Fine Art, Design and Theory. They can also participate in research projects formulated by the departments.
The research projects, miscellaneous in nature, make the Jan van Eyck a multi-disciplinary institute. This also shows in the programme of the institute. Researchers, departments and the institute organise various weekly activities, to which special speakers are invited: lectures, seminars, workshops, screenings, exhibitions, discussions, … The Jan van Eyck community and external interested parties are welcome to attend this programme. The result is a dynamic and critical exchange between the different agents from within and outside of the Jan van Eyck.
Facilities
Researchers are advised by a team of artists, designers and theoreticians who have won their spurs globally. They receive their own studio and a stipend. Furthermore, researchers can make use of all kinds of facilities which support their projects, from first concept to public presentation, including the library, the documentation centre and various workshops: materials (wood and other materials); time-based productions; analogue and digital (online and offline) publishing (including photography and silkscreen). They can also get assistance with their print work, the editing and distribution of publications and the publicity of events. more info
Applications
Candidates applying for Fine Art, Design or Theory are asked to propose an individual research project. They can also indicate their interest in participating in one of the projects that are offered by the department of their choice or one of the other departments.
The academic year runs from 1 January to 31 December. Research candidates can apply for a one-year or two-year research period starting annually on 1 January. It is also possible to apply to do research for a different period and with a different starting date. more info
Video messages
Please visit our website on a regular basis for the upcoming series of video messages by Kim de Groot, designer of the JVE 2010 recruitment campaign.
Rita Angus Residency, Wellington, New Zealand – deadline 3 May 2010
http://www.weltec.ac.nz/residency/rita_angus_residency.html
Applications are invited for the Rita Angus Residency for 2010.
The Residency supports an artist to produce a new body of work that reflects upon the interplay between technology and culture. The Residency also encourages the artist to enter into dialogue with the Wellington arts community and to exhibit and discuss their practice.
The Rita Angus Residency is being offered in association with the Wellington Institute of Technology’s School of Creative Technologies.
MA/MSc Creative Technologies at the Institute of Creative Technologies, Leicester, UK: applications now open for 2010
MA/MSc Creative Technologies
Institute of Creative Technologies
http://www.ioct.dmu.ac.uk/masters.html
Are you… a technologist with a creative dimension? an artist working with technologies? a designer with programming skills?
The Masters in Creative Technologies crosses traditional disciplines and boundaries and is designed to allow you to develop and strengthen your creative technologies research and practice. At the convergence of the e-sciences, arts and humanities subjects, the course supports a range of contemporary careers including computational intelligence, holographic imagery, web content development, the arts, entertainment and games industries, and careers in teaching and creative technologies development.
You should be interested in developing multidisciplinary knowledge and skills in the production of digital media and products. The MA/MSc Creative Technologies welcomes people from a wide range of backgrounds.
Delivered by the Institute of Creative Technologies, this innovative Masters is run in partnership with the Faculties of Art & Design, Humanities and Technology.
For more details contact Lisa McNicoll at lmcnicoll@dmu.ac.uk or visit the website at http://www.ioct.dmu.ac.uk/masters.htm
‘What I have found most exciting about the IOCT Masters is the sheer amount of ideas bubbling under the surface. I find it exciting that you can work closely with people who can help you take your ideas from conceptual stages through to post production. I have found it to be as inspiring as I thought it would be, and it has fuelled a passion for the combination of disciplines.’
IOCT Masters student
‘The IOCT Masters course is sold on the fact that it transcends the boundaries between the Arts, Technology and Humanities, and it really does do just that! There’s a range of input from staff across different areas, faculties and expertise, giving the Masters a feel that as well as being part of a wider community within the university we as students can benefit from the wider knowledge base that accompanies that.’
IOCT Masters student
‘The IOCT’s groundbreaking new MA/MSc in Creative Technologies is both innovative and welcome; its transdisciplinary model aims to break down the artificial schisms between arts/humanities and science/technology – and create breakthroughs in a whole host of areas. This commitment to bringing together disciplines in new and exciting ways will help develop the UK’s reputation as a leader in the creative industries.’
Jerry Fishenden, Director of the Centre for Technology Policy Research and former National Technology Officer of Microsoft UK.
Call for Applications: New Media MA, University of Amsterdam – deadline 1 April 2010
Overview
The International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (NMMA) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is accepting applications for 2010-2011 academic year. The NMMA is a one-year residence program undertaken in English at UvA in the heart of Amsterdam. Students become actively engaged in critical Internet culture, with an emphasis on new media theory and aesthetics, including theoretical materialist traditions and practical information visualization trends. Our permanent faculty are recognized experts in their fields, who are committed to their students. The program admits approximately forty students per year, classes are usually no larger than 20 and often smaller, and the faculty-to-student ratio is 1:8.
Curriculum and Academics
1st Semester: students follow a course in academic blogging, led by critical Internet theorist and tactical media practitioner Geert Lovink. Their entries form the internationally noted Masters of Media site, http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/, regarded as a top blog for new media research and nominated for a Dutch blog award for best education blog. The concurrent new media theories course focuses on classic texts by innovators from Alan Turing to Tim Berners-Lee. The final first semester class, Digital Methods, given by the program Chair, Richard Rogers, trains students in novel techniques for Internet research, http://www.digitalmethods.net/.
2nd Semester: the student chooses between courses on digital aesthetics, new media politics or information visualization. The digital aesthetics course is theoretically inclined in the traditions of art history and visual culture, and the new media politics class is concerned with the transformations the Internet is bringing to politics. Information visualization is a joint theoretical-practical collaboration between designers, programmers and analysts, where the product is an online tool, digital visualization or interactive graphic. The course of study concludes with the M.A. thesis, an original analysis that makes a contribution to the field, undertaken with the close mentorship of a faculty supervisor. The graduation ceremony includes an international symposium with renowned speakers. Graduates of the NMMA have gained an analytical and practical skill-set that enables diverse careers in research and practice-related areas that make use of the Internet, including business, government, NGOs, and creative industries that are evolving with emerging new media. Our graduates include Lotte Meijer, winner of a Webby award, and Eva Kol, whose MA thesis, Hyves, was published by Kosmos in 2008 and sold over 5000 copies its first year in print.
Student Life
The quality-of-living in Amsterdam ranks among the highest of international capitals. UvA’s competitive tuition (see below) and the ubiquity of spoken English both on and off-campus make the program especially accommodating for foreign students. The city’s many venues, festivals, and other events provide remarkably rich cultural offerings and displays of technological innovation. The program has ties to organizations including PICNIC, the Waag Society, Institute for Network Cultures, Virtueel Platform, Netherlands Institute for Media Art, govcom.org, and other cultural institutions, where internship opportunities may be available, in consultation with the student’s thesis supervisor. Students attend and blog, twitter or otherwise capture local new media events and festivals, while commenting as well on larger international issues and trends pertaining to new media. The quality of student life is equally to be found in the university’s lively and varied intellectual climate. NMMA students come from North and South America, Africa, Asia and across Europe and from academic and professional backgrounds including journalism, art and design, engineering, the humanities and social sciences.
Leonardo Scholarship for the 1st International Masters in MediaArtHistories – deadline 28 March 2010
The Department for Image Science and Leonardo/ISAST are pleased to announce their new cooperative effort, a half-tuition scholarship for the Master of Arts (MA) course in MediaArtHistories, with a start in May 2010!
=> LEONARDO SCHOLARSHIP FOR MEDIA ART HISTORIES
The scholarship is planned to answer the critical challenges of the 21st century, which require mobilization and cross-fertilization among the domains of art, science and technology by supporting the studies of a new researcher or artist.
=> FIRST INTERNATIONAL MASTER OF MEDIA.ART.HISTORIES
(low-residency; English language, international faculty)
The postgraduate program MediaArtHistories conveys the most important developments of contemporary art through a network of renowned international theorists, artists and curators like: Erkki HUHTAMO, Lev MANOVICH, Christiane PAUL, Paul SERMON, Edward SHANKEN, Jens HAUSER, Sean CUBITT, Christa SOMMERER, Gerfried STOCKER, Knowbotic Research, Frieder NAKE, Oliver GRAU and many others.
Artists and programmers give new insights into the latest software, interface developments and their interdisciplinary and intercultural praxis. Keywords are: Strategies of Interaction & Interface Design, Social Software, Immersion & Emotion and Artistic Invention. Using online databases and other modern aids, knowledge of computer animation, netart, interactive, telematic and genetic art as well as the most recent reflections on nano art, augmented reality and wearables are introduced. Historical derivations that go far back into art and media history are tied in intriguing ways to digital art. Important approaches and methods from Image Science, Media Archaeology and the History of Science &Technology will be discussed.
=> DANUBE UNIVERSITY KREMS – located in the UNESCO world heritage Wachau, 70km from Vienna, is the only public university in Europe specializing in advanced continuing education by offering low-residency degree programs for working professionals and lifelong learners. Our students & faculty members come from the USA, Italy, Canada, Syria, Austria, Mexico, & Hong Kong, among others. Without interrupting their career, students have the opportunity to learn through direct experience, social learning in small groups and contacts with labs and industry. They gain key qualifications for the contemporary art and media marketplace.
The Center in Monastery Goettweig, where most MediaArtHistories courses take place, is housed in a 14th century building, remodeled to fit the needs of modern research in singular surroundings.
=> LEONARDO/ISAST – Leonardo creates opportunities for the powerful exchange of ideas between practitioners in art, science and technology. Through publications, initiatives and public forums, Leonardo/ISAST facilitates cross-disciplinary research in these fields, seeking to catalyze fruitful solutions for the challenges of the 21st century. Among the challenges requiring cross-disciplinary approaches are establishing sustainable environmental practices, spreading global scientific and artistic literacy, creating technological equity, and encouraging freedom of thought and imagination. By enhancing communication between scientists, artists, and engineers, Leonardo supports experimental projects and interacts with established institutions of art and science to transform their research and educational practices.
=>LEAF – The Leonardo Education and Art Forum promotes the advancement of artistic research and academic scholarship at the intersections of art, science, and technology. Serving practitioners, scholars, and students who are members of the Leonardo community, LEAF provides a forum for collaboration and exchange with other scholarly communities, including the College Art Association of America (CAA), of which it is an affiliate society.
Application documents (digital) :
- Letter of Motivation
- Application form
- Copies/scans of certificates
- Copy/scan of passport
Application Deadline: 28. March 2010
Further Information:
http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/mah
www.leonardo.info
www.virtualart.at
www.mediaarthistories.org
Contact:
Andrea Haberson
Department for Image Science
Danube University Krems
Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Str. 30, A-3500 Krems
Tel: +43(0)2732 893-2569
andrea.haberson@donau-uni.ac.at
www.donau-uni.ac.at/dis
“Open Call Library” for Supercalifragilistic – Mistaken Landscapes, Sardinia – deadline May 2010
From Giancarlo Norese:
dear friends,
I’ve been invited as a Visiting Professor at a new residency program that will be held in Sardinia, Italy, during april-may 2010 (“Supercalifragilistic – Mistaken Landscapes”, the visual arts section of a wider project named Le Ville Matte, www.levillematte.it ). It’s a project about matter, fragility, chaos, emergency, precariousness, nature, love, debris, the “mistakes” of the landscape and architecture as a narration. This project bases itself on minimal and featherlight actions that help us remember who we are, or who we could become.
As a part of the project, I’m trying to arrange an “Open Call Library”: artists are invited to send their artists’ books, catalogues and magazines, in order to build up a small library that will be used by the artists in residence and that subsequently will become part of the local library catalogue.
Artists, architects, activists and theorists who wants to contribute to our “Open call Library” can send their publications to:
“Le Ville Matte”
Biblioteca Comunale, c/o Castello Siviller
via Baronale, 23
09034 Villasor (CA), Italy
my best wishes,
giancarlo
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giancarlo norese
norese@gmail.com
www.norese.tk
www.lucafausu.tk
skype: casa_gialla
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Visions in the Nunnery 2010 – call for moving image and performance work – deadline 24 May 2010
We are now accepting applications for moving image and performance artists to apply to our international open submission event. This year promises to be more ambitious than ever before.
Visions in the Nunnery is an annual event that showcases some of the most exciting British and International artists who are pushing the elements moving image and performance practice. It is also an opportunity for artists and audiences to engage with the selected work both visually and through critical debate.
To apply please visit www.openvisions.org
Application Deadline: 24th May 2010
Exhibition Dates: 1st – 17th October 2010
Venue: The Nunnery Gallery, the Bow Arts Trust, London, UK
thanks
Kind Regards
Valentina Ferrandes
London UK
Mobile +44 0792 9248657
blank_page@hotmail.com
valentinaferrandes.com
Aspect open calls for V16: Lo-tech, and V17: Hi-tech – first deadline 1 May 2010
OPEN CALLS FOR V.16: LO-TECH AND V.17:HI-TECH
V16: Lo-tech—Due May 1, 2010
V17: Hi-tech—Due August 1, 2010
ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art, a biannual DVD publication, is currently accepting submissions of work for V16: Lo-tech, and V17: Hi-tech. Artists have historically co-opted emerging technology, adapting and expanding complex developments to suit their own goals. Conversely, there is nostalgia for obsolete technology. We seek work that exploits antiquated or sophisticated technology, either as an aesthetic or technical choice. We will review installation, video, performance, sound, and any other work best documented in time-based format.
ASPECT asks artist/commentator pairs to submit proposals of time-based work. Commentators may be curators, historians, critics, or educators who can offer a distinct perspective on the work. Criteria for selection will include the qualifications of the commentator and the quality of the work. Audio recordings of the commentary will be assembled after the submissions have been selected.
Submissions must include:
-Video documentation (less than 15 minutes in length)
-A brief (100 word) statement regarding the submitted work
-Resume of the artist, resume of commentator
-Contact information for the commentator and artist
-Brief notes outlining the proposed commentary w/ respect to theme
Submissions must be received by the respective deadlines, sent to*:
ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art
46 Waltham Street, suite 108
Boston, MA 02118
617.695.0500
* please do not ship with signature required
For more information see our FAQ:
http://www.aspectmag.com/submit
Company Information —The mission of ASPECT is to foster a deeper and more intimate understanding of contemporary new media art by expanding access, education, and distribution of the genre. ASPECT pioneered DVD distribution of artworks and continues to set the standard for new media art publishing and distribution. ASPECT Magazine is a biannual DVD magazine of new media art. Each issue highlights 5-10 artists working in new media whose works are best documented in video or sound, including in-depth information on the artists and commentary by distinguished curators and critics. Individual issues and subscriptions are available directly from the ASPECT website.
Call for Papers – “Besides the Screen: Moving Images during Distribution, Exhibition and Consumption – deadline 11 June 2010
Call for Papers – “Besides the Screen: Moving Images during Distribution, Exhibition and Consumption”
New media technologies impact cinema well beyond the screen; they also promote the reorganization of its logic of distribution, modes of consumption and viewing regimes. Once, it was video and television broadcast that disturbed traditional cinematographic experience, revealing the image as soon as it was captured and bringing it into the home of the audience. Nowadays, computer imaging and online networks cause an even stronger effect to the medium, increasing the public agency in the movie market dynamics.
In order to understand how these significant changes in the modes of accessing and distributing moving images might affect cinematographic experience, economy and historiography, we are obliged to rethink not only of its future, but its past as well. Besides the Screen is a one-day international symposium that aims to map research projects on new and old forms of moving image distribution, exhibition and consumption. The conference will be hosted in Goldsmiths College (University of London) in November, with the support of the Goldsmiths Graduate School.
We invite proposals for paper presentations in the form of 250-word abstracts, to be sent to the email besidesthescreen@gmail.com until June 11th 2010. The list of selected works will be published online at besidesthescreen.blogspot.com (under construction).
Suggested topics / themes:
· Contemporary views of traditional exhibition venues
· Online video archives and directories (archive.org, youtube)
· Non-traditional distribution networks
· Peer-to-peer and filesharing
· Film & video piracy
· Transnational distribution
· Projection-based performances (vjing/ live cinema/ etc.)
· Market regulations (DVD distributions, release windows, ratings)
· Contemporary and historical film societies
· Non-commercial exhibition spaces (art galleries, outdoor screenings, etc.)
· Intersections between IPR, copyright & film distribution/exhibition.
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Recent Posts
- The Last Vispo Anthology – currently showing at Common Ground Art Gallery, Ontario, Canada
- Call for Papers: Understanding Machinima: essays on filmmaking in virtual worlds – deadline 30 August 2010
- Jailbrake invitation to take part, London UK, 26-28 March 2010
- Narrative Space Conference – University of Leicester, UK – 20-22 April 2010
- What Are Games Really Teaching Us? – John Kirriemuir, Pat Kane, Gareth Mitchell – London, 25 March 2010, 7-9pm
- Jan van Eyck Academie research and production residencies, Maastricht, The Netherlands – deadline 15 April 2010
- Machinima event – Leicester UK, 6pm, 18 March 2010
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- Chris Joseph on Decode: Digital Design Sensations at the V&A, London – until 11 April 2010