INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: 'CREATING SECOND LIVES: READING AND WRITING 
VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES'

First call for papers:

Games and virtual environments are playing an increasingly powerful role 
in Western entertainment and narrative culture. Of particular importance 
are the constant re- and de-construction of the embodied playing self and 
the post-industrialist, customisable fluidity of personal and social 
identity.This interdisciplinary conference will shed light on how virtual 
communities are 'read' and 'written', i.e. constructed textually 
through linguistic and semiotic en- and decoding, by producers and 
receivers of video and massively multiplayer online games as well as 
virtual worlds such as Second Life.

The conference?s major intention is to bring together researchers from a 
wide range of different areas, who share an interest in semiotics, 
stylistics, codification, new media design, 3D programming and 
media/cultural studies but do not always speak the same 'language'. The 
conference will facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogue and understanding 
by providing room and material for discussions between scholars, 
scientists and professionals from the gaming industry. By doing so, it 
will help experts identify and debate current and future developments 
particularly in relation to the textual construction of subjectivities, 
communities and ideologies. Date: 24-25 October 2008. 
Venue: Bangor University.

Abstracts of 250-300 words are invited on any topic relating to the 
following themes and questions:

- How do we 'read' and 'write' virtual communities, i.e. how are 
identities, communities and ideologies constructed textually and 
discursively in video games and other digital 
environments?
- How are user identities 'coded into' virtual communities?
- To what extent and to what effect can we apply contemporary stylistic 
and semiotic theory and analysis to virtual, interactive communities?
- How do avatars impersonate networks, communities and societies?
- What are the roles of body and mind in virtual communities? Do they 
separate or amalgamate?
- To what extent do we need to revisit the notions of 'virtual', 'actual' 
and 'real' in relation to entextualised social and communal worlds and 
realities?
- How does and will 3D graphic design contribute - now and in the 
foreseeable future - to the construction of social identity?
- What programming tools and methodologies are/may be used to create 
virtual communities and inter-'personal' relationships?

Keynote speakers will include Prof Espen Aarseth, Co-founder and Editor-in-
Chief of Gamestudies.org and author of Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic 
Literature, and Fred Hasson, founding CEO of TIGA, the UK Games 
Development Trade Association.

Deadline for abstracts: 5 April 2008 (to be sent to [log in to unmask])

Conference organisers: NIECI Research Centre for Video Games and Virtual 
Environments (Dr Astrid Ensslin, Dr Eben Muse)

For further enquiries, please contact Astrid Ensslin at 
[log in to unmask], or Simon Holloway at [log in to unmask]


Conference website: http://nieci.bangor.ac.uk/conf/?q=callforpapers/3


Dr Astrid Ensslin
Lecturer in New Media
National Institute for Excellence in the Creative Industries
Bangor University
LL57 2DG
UK
WWW: www.bangor.ac.uk/creative_industries/astrid.php.en