[p2p-research] UNDERSTANDING MACHINIMA: essays on filmmaking in virtual worlds

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Chris,

if you find an original without quotes, thanks for putting it in the blog as
well!

Michel


> From: Jenna <jennang156 at YAHOO.COM>
> Date: March 20, 2010 10:44:53 AM CDT
> To: DASH at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> Subject: [DASH] UNDERSTANDING MACHINIMA: essays on filmmaking in
> virtual worlds
> Reply-To: Digital Arts Histories <DASH at JISCMAIL.AC.UK>, Jenna <
jennang156 at YAHOO.COM
> >
>
> 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; d?tournement; remix; digital
> mashup; appropriation; recombinative narratives; audio and visual
> theory; spatiality; narrative architecture;
>
> * Contemporary media contexts: comparative media; machinima vis-?-
> 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 at 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, Ume? University
> Sweden
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

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