Game Spaces

Studio for Electronic Theatre has produced a series of digitally-enhanced performance works (ACT Oedipus, 2011; Oedipus - Code Breaker, 2013) re-imagining the Oedipus myth in a virtual-reality age. These works combine physical performance with audio-visual feed- back and augmented reality effects, with the aim of producing a new turn in the tradition of "total theatre" which transforms the experience of time and space, producing a non- representational experiential form. By re- staging the ancient tale in a near-future telematic environment and highlighting the disjunctures between the virtualized hyper-reality of the digital age and the brutalities that persist in the mundane reality of crisis spaces such as the war zone or refugee camp, SET's work figures something of the instability and indeterminacy that constitutes the identity of Oedipus, who is both foreign and native to Thebes, both husband and son to Jocasta.

"The realities of new technological and social conditions since the 1990s demand a new approach to literacy teaching. Looking onward from the original statement of aims of the multiliteracies movement in 1996, this volume brings together top-quality scholarship and research that has embraced the notion and features new contributions by many of the originators of this approach to literacy.

Drawing on large research projects and empirical evidence, the authors explore practical and educational issues that relate to multiliteracies, such as assessment, pedagogy and curriculum. The viewpoint taken is that multiliteracies is a complementary socio-cultural approach to the new literacies that includes pedagogy and learning. The differences are addressed from a multiliteracies perspective – one that does not discount or undermine the new literacies, but shows new ways in which they are complementary.

Computers and the internet are transforming the way we work and communicate and the very notion of literacy itself. This volume offers frontline information and a vital update for those wishing to understand the evolution of multiliteracies and the current state of literacy theory in relation to it."

"CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS: "MAPPING THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA IN TURKEY"

Editors: Barış Çoban & Bora Ataman

Extended Deadline for abstracts:
January 1st 2013

http://alternativemediamap.net/

We aim to map the alternative media in Turkey, which is varied in form, structure and working styles such as “cracks”, “rhizomes” and “fronts”. Similarly to what has occurred with the mainstream media, both large and small examples of the alternative media, alongside their widespread prevalence inside the country, have also already transcended the national borders. We argue that mapping the alternative media, embracing newspapers, radio and television channels, cinemas, blogs, forums and platforms, essentially the full range of conventional and new media organs and vehicles, is one of the most useful research approaches to comprehending the nature of alternative politics in Turkey.

The alternative media works as a source of memory and an archive helping to understand the historical and current structure of alternative politics in Turkey. IT also gives voice to alternative ideologies and politics and makes their political activities visible. In addition, the alternative media, which mainly represents the “otherised”, oppressed and marginalised groups, forms the vanguard of struggle against the hegemony and barbarism of the oppressive, globalized neo-liberal society.

Alternative media, as an umbrella term, applies to those media organs which are typically bottom up organisations. In principle, their organizational structures and decision making processes are democratic, participatory, polyphonic and dialogic. Their opposition to the mainstream media finds its roots, in its form and content, in social and political struggles and is based in radical ideologies such as anarchism, radical democracy and Marxism. The existence of alternative media indicates the struggle to construct a truly democratic and free sphere of communication from a number of broad perspectives, varying from the idea of simply being independent from either the state or capital, to being completely opposed to them. In this context, it is also possible to claim that every organ of the alternative media, as a centre of subaltern resistance, is part of a greater alternative communication network.

This so-called alternative network (or networks) is/are the voice of different political or social groups, communities, minorities or even individuals at the grassroots level. Thus, they open the way for these groups to actively participate in political and social life, as either real “agents” or as “spectacles” in the field of symbolic struggle. Therefore, individuals or groups can find opportunities to get involved in both real and symbolic struggles for hegemony, not only as consumers, but also as producers; as active agents.

Therefore, alternative media institutions either on the micro- or macro-scale cannot be considered as combatants solely at the informational level. In addition to their struggle to gather, record and spread news and ideas concerning local, national and transnational problems, they also provide a response to the establishment through real political actions. It is not unusual to see their active participation in protests, or even note that they hold the leadership positions in the organisation of some of these dissident political actions. Therefore, their active struggle with the hegemonic powers can also be considered as an effort to create alternative political forms. More commonly however, alternative media operate as the symbolic production centre of alternative politics and as an incubation ground for the intellectual and ideological constructs of social movements.

Alternative media, along with other dissident institutions, are seen as paving the way for a brighter and more just future by being the voice of the voiceless and contributing to the imagining of a different world. Threatening so-called representative democracy by supporting participatory social, cultural and political activities is also deemed useful to this end. By engaging in such activities, they may be able to cause the transformation of political culture in general. More importantly, however, the ways in which subordinate constituents of the society interpret politics and their own means of participation could change in a positive manner. Moreover, such efforts may also lead to the construction of efficient counter-public spheres alongside the more common examples of alternative spaces.
Diverse anti-systemic, reformist and revolutionary ideological orientations, varied political discourses and different modes of action constituting the alternative media landscape mostly open up an opportunity for the “oppressed” to actively participate in these alternative political spaces that are, to a certain extent, diverse, colourful, vivid and, most importantly, innately dialogic.
In this context, we argue that the “duty” of academia should be to understand these alternatives without stigmatizing them as the source of conflicts within the prevailing social system. After all, we as editors, would like to study these initiatives since the imagining of an alternative world may only be possible by embracing the oppressed and their voice, even though the world around us is not particularly welcoming.

Abstracts of papers are sought on topics such as:
• Radical- militant media (affiliated with revolutionary organizations)
• Radical media (Struggling within legal parameters to push the limits of the existing system
• Identity and rights-based media (Human rights, labour and trade-union rights, gender, environment, ethnicity, struggles based on faith or denomination
• Transnational and diaspora-based alternative media
• Independent, objective, opposition media
• Dissident voices, “cracks” in the mainstream media

However, it should be noted that the categories above do not refer to independent categories with clear differences. It is possible to say that; most examples of the alternative media operating in Turkey can be included under more than one of the rubrics mentioned above. Nevertheless, the alternative media organs in Turkey, despite a degree of permeability in the boundaries that separate them, may be seen as belonging more to one or another of the above-mentioned classifications, therefore, these categories will constitute the book’s chapters.

Furthermore, we are mainly interested in the case studies (comparative if possible) and empirical research possessing theoretical and methodological clarity, and focusing on at least one of three basic dimensions of media studies; such as “Production”, “Text”, or “Audience”, without missing the multi-layered and intertwined relationships between these dimensions.

Abstracts of a maximum of 250 words in Turkish and English outlining the topic, theoretical and methodological approach as well as the research question, should be submitted to either Barış Çoban (bcoban@dogus.edu.tr) or Bora Ataman (bataman@dogus.edu.tr) until January1st 2013.

Announcement of the abstracts selected will be made by February 1 2013.

The deadline for full paper submissions is August 1, 2013

The editors are planning to publish book in Turkish and English and have made an agreement with Yordam, to publish in January 2014.

After the evaluation of the abstracts, negotiations with foreign publishing houses will begin for the English version.
Barış Çoban & Bora Ataman (Eds.)
Extended Deadline for Research Proposals: January 1st, 2013"

The paper accommodates Espen Aarseth’s concept of 'virtuality' and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s concept of 'suspension of disbelief' to the context of modern story forms. The primary focus will be on the videogame. The premise is that suspending disbelief at narrative improbabilities is a skill required to construct narrative coherence. Constructing narrative coherence of stories that contain virtual elements entails supplementary suspension of disbelief at virtual improbabilities, suspension of virtual disbelief. Since increasing the degree of virtuality often increases the requisite traversal effort, virtuality can be said to set increased demands on story traversal as well. This results in the dilemma of 'virtual balance:' while virtuality has the potential to strengthen diegesis, it on the other hand sets heightened demands on story traversal and narrative coherence. The concluding argument is that these heightened demands may be turned into rhetorical tools.

"""6.04"
Organization and technical supervision
MIRAN ERIČ

Screenplay:
MILOŠ BAVEC, TIMOTEJ KNIFIC

Geomorfology and glaciology
MILOŠ BAVEC

Geomorfology
JURIJ KUNAVER

Paleozoology
VIDA POHAR

Photographer
JOŽE HANC

Drawing of animals
JURIJ MIKULETIČ

Digital relief model
DFG CONSULTING"

This paper is written as part of a project called ‘Makers in the Lowlands’ to analyse the Dutch amateur culture and media production with the help of digital media and specifically aims at Machinima, the creation of media productions with the use of a game or 3D engine. We chose this subject because of our own personal interest in the matter. The team was and are all involved in creating this exciting new art form, varying from actually making the ‘pure’ form of video Machinima to uploading screenshots of game situations to blogs and forums. By analyzing Machinima through a discourse and literature study we hope to find indications how amateur culture and media production are constructed, offering insights that help in a better understanding of the Dutch amateur culture and how this can be used to create new communities.

This work deals with the use of self-player pianos - Class of automatic musical instruments - and their technical evolution and the acquis in perforated rolls of paper that containings the digital records for the instrument. Also evaluates the dimension of its use by composers and performers at the beginning of modernity and points to the musical preferences of pianists interpreters who can be seen from the cataloging of rolls for these instruments. Reinforces the conviction of relational intimacy between music and technology. [Text in Portuguese]

In this paper, we describe the narrative ontological model encompassed in the Labyrinth system. The aim of the system is to allow users to explore a digital archive by following the narrative relations among the resources contained in it. Targeted at cultural heritage applications, the Labyrinth project relies on the notion of “cultural archetype”, i.e., a core representation encompassing archetypical stories and characters, exploited as a conceptual framework for the access to archives of heterogeneous media objects. In particular, we describe how the system leverages various types of ontological reasoning to let narrative relations emerge between artworks, and exemplify how these relations are exploited by the system to provide the user with a narrative conceptual framework she or he is familiar with in the exploration of the archive.

" The internet has empowered a large number of users to blog on whatever subject they like through remarks, articles, ideas, dialogues and interactive comments supported by other content. Web pages have granted people access to a private sphere where they can publish or share with others their opinions, news and comments in a sort of journal that has come to be known as a blog.Blogs started to emerge in their current form in 1996,when American software developer Dave Winer launched his site dedicated to writing news and posting relevant reactions and comments on a wide range of issues

Numerous similar web sites were developed and continue to multiply, no longer restricted to a certain country but rather becoming global. As blogs have proliferated, they have grown diverse and become a phenomenon that attracts a large number of youth. At the same time, they provide a rich arena where knowledge and news are shared and public opinion is formed.In Egypt there was limited interest in blogs until 2001, when the number of Egyptian blogs started to grow each year, providing youth with a refuge where they could easily express themselves and their beliefs without restrictions. Blogs proved an effective means for digital communication among a large number of segments of the public who were not acquainted with each other outside the cyber world. Thus, blogging attracted the new generation of politicians, authors and journalists interested in collaborating either as readers or writers. In this regard, blogs evolved into an outlet for the expression of opinion, talents and interests, for venting feelings and desires and for sharing knowledge. It was to be expected that the Egyptian blogging movement would interact with current events in the Egyptian and Arab public spheres from 2005 to the present time. From 2006 to 2008, a number of demonstrations and expressions of real political protest were associated in one way or another with cyber-protests on the internet, tapping into the massive public mobilization of youth on political blogs. There followed a degree of confusion between blogging and rumors both on the part of  bloggers and readers. Thus, in recent years, Egyptian blogs have grown on a wider scale, creating anew virtual community that enjoys quite strong social, cultural and political impact on the real society.

In the absence of relevant, accurate data about blogging, there arose simplistic conceptions that dismissed the phenomenon as a way to spend leisure time and circulate rumors. Such perceptions found an audience among governmental agencies and a large segment of the public. For that reason ,IDSC initiated a study on this phenomenon as part of the project titled "The Blogosphere in Egypt"implemented within IDSC’s work plan in January 2008. The project aims to study the Egyptian blogosphere in terms of its importance in strengthening democracy and the information society.

This report stands as the first output of the project. It was designed to provide the reader with a general framework of basic knowledge about blogs, their importance, the scope of their spread, their characteristics and their contents on one hand, and bloggers' characteristics and interests on the other. For this purpose, the report is divided into four sections: 1. the significance of blogs and the appearance of the blogosphere on the global level; 2. main features of Egyptian blogs; 3.a content analysis of these blogs; and  4. discerning the special characteristics of Egyptian bloggers."

El texto expone y problematiza la noción de artes vivas en el marco de la cultura digital y expansión tecnológica, analizando algunos factores clave para comprender un cambio paradigmático que pone en crisis el tema del cuerpo, la escena, y otros  factores que involucran la creación de una obra de arte viva. El artículo  desarrolla los principales puntos expuestos en la Mesa de Trabajo "Artes vivas y nuevas tecnologías: alterando los modos de creación", LabSurLab, Medellín 2011.

ICTs evolution in the field of digital cultural participation has helped turn geo-social tagging into a new form of creation of cultural value through user-generated contents (UGC). Tagging a place is giving that place a story: this means being able to write digital stories on geographies and to rediscover our territory in a new and shared way. Aim of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of these digital tools, basing our study on some examples of geo-tagging and geo-social blogs, in Italy and abroad, creating forms of real social tagging and urban digital storytelling.

The intent of my article is to outline a process-oriented framework able to connect the micro and the macro context of the ludic experience, in order to point out an integrated vision of the phenomenon. Concerning the former, I adopt the concept of “Magic circle”, interpreted in socio-semiotic terms (Eugeni 2010). Regarding to the latter, my reference is to the “Circuit of culture” suggested by Du Gay and al. (1997). Furthermore, these dimensions are analyzed through two intersected continuums: the scripts, the repertory of practices that set our heuristics (Abelson and Schank 1977), and the frames, the conceptual pictures we employ in order to visualize and fix our symbolic systems (Eco 1975; Goffman 1974). This proposal is empirically tested following a qualitative methodology (Silverman 2013) through observations, ludic reports, collective and single in-depth interviews with three gaming groups.

""A) La problématique générale traitée dans cette conférence: la (ré-)utilisation de corpus multimédias (documents audiovisuels, textuels, sonores, …) numériques pour des utilisateurs et des contextes d’usage spécifiques mais souvent fort variés.

B) Les problématiques spécifiques:
1) la sémiotique du document multimédia numérique;
2) une méthodologie d’écriture/réécriture (« authoring ») de corpus multimédia;
3) discussion des notions « genre de publication », « scénario de publication »;
4) l'instrumentation du processus de l’écriture/réécriture d’un corpus multimédia.

C) L’exemple: Guanacache. Les eaux de la soif. Un corpus multimédia enligne consacré au monde de vie des derniers descendants huarpe vivant dans la région de Mendoza en Argentine
""

"A participatory experimental digital media workshop event.

The Project will make use of GPS, non-linear digital sound and visual technology and firmly puts the participants as the originators of the days digital media outputs

The project 'Tracing Spaces' is triggered by people's movements around a space. It explores notions of perceived freedom of space, time and boundaries. It is a non linear narrative and as more people participate the art builds in complexity. Similarly the art changes and diminishes as less people interact."