Positive Technology Journal

Call for Papers

PHYSICALITY AND INTERACTION
A Special Journal Issue of Interacting with Computers
Planned publication date: September 2008

Following the successful Physicality 2006 and Physicality 2007 International Workshops, which demonstrated the growing multi-disciplinary interest in this area of work, we invite submissions for this special issue on Physicality and Interaction for the interdisciplinary journal Interacting with Computers.

We live in an increasingly digital world yet our bodies and minds are naturally designed to interact with the physical. The products of the 21st century are and will be a synthesis of digital and physical elements embedded in new physical and social environments. As we design more hybrid physical/digital products, the distinctions for the user become blurred. It is therefore increasingly important that we understand what we gain, lose or confuse by the added digitality.

Augmented physical artefacts can be tailored and adapted to operate within a wide range of ecological settings. However, they also become more complex and require a fairly intensive design process to make them not simply practical and functional but also engaging. As a result, the need becomes even more pressing to comprehend the underlying computational intricacies, the physical form, properties and behaviour, the physical and social contexts, and the issues of aesthetics and creativity.

The issues in this field impact many areas of study: architecture, art, cognitive science, geography, human�computer interaction, philosophy, product design, sociology, tangible interface and ubiquitous computing.

We invite contributions that address physicality at various levels, including:

� design at the physical-digital frontier
� the philosophy of physicality
� artefact-focussed social interaction
� physically-inspired interaction in virtual worlds
� creativity and materiality
� interactive art and performance
� digital emulation of the physical
� the evolving role of digital artefacts in material culture

SUBMISSION DETAILS
Length guide: 4000 - 7000 words
Paper deadline: 1st April 2008
To expedite the reviewing process prospective authors are encouraged to send an abstract at their earliest convenience.
Detailed author guidelines can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/525445/authorinstructions
Note: For the initial submission a single PDF copy will suffice, i.e. text and figures need not be separate.
Any further queries, please contact Devina@physicality.org

GUEST EDITORS
Devina Ramduny-Ellis, InfoLab 21, Lancaster University, UK
Alan Dix, InfoLab 21, Lancaster University, UK
Joanna Hare, National Centre for Product Design & Development Research, UWIC, UK
Steve Gill, National Centre for Product Design & Development Research, UWIC, UK

Via Networked Performance

Submission Deadline: February 29, 2009 :: All research articles are refereed and should be between 7000 - 10000 words in length :: We also welcome submission of debates (1500 - 3000 words) or Feature Reports (3000 - 4000 words). This call invites submissions for a special issue related to Digital Cultures of California. Internationally, California is a phenomenon in terms of its relationship to creating, consuming and reflecting upon the era of digital technologies. From the legendary garage entrepreneurs, to the multi-billion dollar culture of venture capital, to stock back-dating scandals, to the epic exodus of California’s IT teams during the Burning Man Festival, this state plays an important role in the cultures of digital technologies.

The Bay Area of California (often referred to somewhat incorrectly as Northern California) is often perceived as a hot-bed of technology activity. Silicon Valley serves as a marker for the massive funding of enterprises that shape many aspects of digital culture. The new interaction rituals that have come to define what social life has become in many parts of the world can often be traced back to this part of the state. New forms of presence awareness and digital communication such as Twitter and Flickr have found a comfortable home in the Bay Area. Complimenting the Bay Area s activities in social software is Southern California - Los Angeles in particular - where Hollywood sensibilities bring together entertainment with technology through such things as video games and 3D cinema.

California is also the home of several colleges and universities where digital technologies are developed in engineering departments and reflected upon from social science and humanities departments. This curious relationship between production and analysis creates the promise of insightful interdisciplinary approaches to making culture. Many institutions have made efforts to combine engineering and social science practices to bolster technology design. Xerox PARC probably stands as the canonical example of interdisciplinary approaches to digital technology design. Similarly, combining arts practices with technology as a kind of exploratory research and development has important precedent at places like PARC and at the practice-based events such as the San Jose California-based Zero One Festival and Symposium.

In this special issue we welcome submissions which investigate, provoke and explicate the California digital cultures from a variety of perspectives. We are interested in papers that approach this phenomenon in scholarly and practice-based ways.

* What are the ways that social networks have been shaped by digital techniques?

* How has the phenomenon of the digital entrepreneur evolved in the age of DIY sensibilities?

* What are the ways that new ideas succeed or fail based on their dissemination amongst the elite, connected digerati, as opposed to their dissemination amongst less more quotidian communities?

* What is the nature of the matrix of relationships between Hollywood entertainment, the military and digital technology?

* Can the DIY culture explored in the pages of Make magazine produce its own markets?

* How does the Apple Inc. culture of product design and development shape and inform popular culture?

* How have the various interdisciplinary approaches undertaken at corporate research centers connected to universities such as Intel Berkeley Labs shaped digital cultures?

Contact for further information: Julian Bleecker - julian [at] nearfuturelaboratory.com

From Usability News

Learning technologies have been taking an increasing role in almost all learning environments. They are used in a variety of informal and formal educational environments, from early years to university level and throughout adulthood, as well as in many commercial, industrial, and governmental settings. With the greater use of learning technologies it is critical to better understand how they interact with human cognition. Both in terms of how they may facilitate and enhance (as well as hinder) learning, and also in terms of how they affect the way we learn and acquire information, and the nature of cognition.

These issues pertain to specific technologies and to learning objectives. Specific technologies (and their usage) are important to understand in their own right; for example, how the use of electronic boards and visualization tools, e-learning, synchronic vs. a-synchronic remote learning, blackboard, simulation, virtual realities, and other technological learning environments affect learning and the learner. But also the learning technologies need to be considered and understood in light of learning objectives: not only the acquisition of information, but also the ability to retain and use it and the assessment of the effectiveness of the learning process. When considering how best to use learning technologies (and their vulnerabilities) one needs to be able to determine which learning materials and objectives are best suited for these technologies, which learning tools are most appropriate, and how to best use them. Furthermore, a fundamental issue to address is if and when learning technologies should replace traditional learning and when and how should learning technologies be blended with traditional learning.

Original and high quality papers that examine learning technologies either from an academic or from a practical perspective will be considered for publication. The first special issue of Pragmatics & Cognition devoted to Cognitive Technologies is now going to be published as a book. It is hoped that the Learning Technologies special issue will also appear in book form in the future.

Deadline for submissions: 30 June 2007 Publication: Summer 2008

More info here 

From G&C website 

Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media Special issue: Gaming in the Asia-Pacific

 As a region, the Asia-Pacific is marked by diverse penetration rates of gaming, mobile and broadband technologies, subject to local cultural and socio-economic nuances. Two defining locations – Seoul (South Korea) and Tokyo (Japan) – are seen as both “mobile centres” and “gaming centres” to which the world looks towards as examples of the future-in-the-present. Unlike Japan, which pioneered the keitai (mobile) IT revolution and mobile consoles such as playstation2, South Korea – the most broadbanded country in the world – has become a centre for MMOs (online massively multiplayer) games and convergent mobile DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadband i.e. TU mobile).

Adorned with over 20,000 PC bangs (PC rooms) in Seoul alone and with professional players (Pro-leagues) making over a million US per year, locations such as South Korea have been lauded as an example of gaming as a mainstream social activity. In a period marked by convergent technologies, South Korea and Japan represent two opposing directions for gaming – Korea emphasizes online MMOs games played on stationary PCs in public spaces (PC bangs) whilst Japan pioneers the mobile (privatized) convergent devices. These two distinct examples, with histories embroiled in conflict and imperialism, clearly demonstrate the importance of locality in the uptake of specific games and game play.

This issue seeks to explore the politics of game play and cultural context by focusing on the burgeoning Asia-Pacific region. Housing sites for global gaming production and consumption such as China, Japan and South Korea, the region provides a wealth of divergent examples of the role of gaming as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Drawing from micro ethnographic studies to macro political economy analysis of techno-nationalisms and trans-cultural flows of cultural capital, this issue will provide an interdisciplinary model for thinking through the politics of gaming production, representation and consumption in the region.

Topics of papers will discuss the region in terms of one of the following areas:

- Case study analysis of specific games and game play

- Is there such thing as a culturally specific aesthetic to the production and consumption of certain games?

- What is the “future” of gaming?

- Emerging and re-occurring productions of techno-nationalism in the region

- New media and experimental gaming in the region

- Convergent technologies and the impact on established modes of game play

- Gendered consumption and production of games

- Government regulations and types of game play

- Pervasive gaming and the role of co-presence

Deadline for this special issue of Games and Culture: 15th March 2007. Authors should submit all inquiries, expressions of interest and papers to Larissa Hjorth (RMIT University) larissa.hjorth [AT] rmit.edu.au.

Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media invites academics, designers and developers, and researchers interested in the growing field of game studies to submit articles, reviews, or special issues proposals to the editor. Games and Culture is an interdisciplinary publication, and therefore it welcomes submissions by those working in fields such as Communication, Anthropology, Computer Science, English, Sociology, Media Studies, Cinema/Television Studies, Education, Art History, and Visual Arts.

All submissions are peer reviewed by two or more members of the distinguished, multi-disciplinary editorial board. Games and Culture aims to have all papers go through their initial review within three months of receipt. Manuscripts should be submitted with four paper copies and electronically in Word or Word Perfect format and conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Fifth Edition)0,000 words in length. Papers that do not conform to these guidelines will be returned to the author(s).