*CFP* "INTERACTIVE ANIMATION AND VIDEO GAMES", CANTERBURY ANIFEST 2019 ONE-DAY RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM

Interactive Animation and Video Games

Friday 8th  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

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@canterbury.ac.uk) and Christopher Holliday (christopher.holliday@kcl.ac.uk). The deadline for proposals is Friday 16th November 2018. Please do get in touch if you wish to discuss possible topics or have any questions regarding the symposium.

Please find below a CFP Reminder for the March 2019 symposium "Interactive Animation and Video Games", held as part of the annual Anifest festival at Canterbury Christ Church University.

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

Keynote speaker: Professor Aylish Wood (University of Kent)