Comunicazioni Sociali: Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural Studies on immersive media (Special Issue)

Deadline: September 2, 2024

Edited by Piermarco Aroldi, Barbara Scifo, and Francesca Pasquali 

https://comunicazionisociali.vitaepensiero.it/news-call-for-papers-frameless-experiences-for-a-multidisciplinary-approach-to-immersive-media-6528.html  

The development of perceptual and narrative environments enabled by immersive digital technologies – such as videomapping and extended realities (virtual, augmented and mixed) associated with increasingly high-performance artificial intelligence systems – has long been the basis for new media experiences in various fields: from entertainment (cinema, video games, theme parks, live events, etc.) to education and training; from cultural and scientific dissemination (documentaries, exhibitions, etc.) to experimentation in the visual and performing arts.

These environments go beyond and transfigure the traditional 'framed' vision of classical art works and media screens, moving towards a synesthetic, participatory and total user experience, characterised by immediacy and presence: real environments that can be explored by users, according to the different degrees of interactivity envisaged, which can both enable the user to "immerse" himself in another world (although in a continuum with the perceptual dimensions of physical reality) and allow the digital contents to "emerge" within the physical space, integrating it with new meanings and new narratives.

In the public debate, however, the diffusion of such technologies is often associated with both forms of 'hype' and 'moral panic', both animated by technocentric perspectives. Instead, there is a need to offer solid knowledge and reflection around the concept and experience of immersivity, reconstructing the roots and the cultural, social and economic paradigms that are driving the development of these new media and environments, in order to also fully grasp their potential for communication and other applications or, conversely, their limitations.

This reflection can be promoted starting from the adoption of a multidisciplinary and systemic approach, able to put into historical perspective the recent technological development of the digital media immersivity paradigm. The aim is to trace the cultural, anthropological, narrative, artistic and media origins of the 'total' experience based on the interaction and physical, multi-sensorial and emotional involvement of the spectator, as well as the commercial and industrial drives.

For this reason, this call for papers for a special issue of Comunicazioni Sociali: Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural Studies is looking for contributions (capable of reading the complexity of the issues posed by the new immersive digital media on the level of cultural imaginaries, aesthetic and narrative forms, fruition and marketing. Thus, it is possible to reflect on the multiple implications (aesthetic, performative, perceptual, cognitive, social, communicative, and formative) of their diffusion.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

- The cultural, media and economic archaeologies and genealogies of immersivity

- The fictional narratives and social imaginaries around immersive technologies

- The theoretical conceptualisations of the notion of immersivity and immersive media

- The creative potential of immersive technologies in artistic, industrial and cultural production

- The multisensoriality of immersive environments and experience

- The forms of immersive storytelling

- The status of the audience of immersive experiences

- The transformations and implications of using immersive environments for learning and training, for care and therapeutic practices and for others field of application

We welcome contributions from different disciplinary perspectives, including media semiotics, science and technology studies, aesthetic philosophy, digital media, studies on the history and languages of theatre and live performance, as well as game and sound studies, etc.).

Please send your abstract and a short biographical note by September 2nd, 2024, filling the following form: 

https://www.vpjournals.it/index.php/comunicazionisociali/about/submissions

Abstracts should be from 300 to 400 words of length (in English). All submissions should include: 5 keywords, name of author(s), institutional affiliation, contact details and a short bio for each author.

Authors will be notified of proposal acceptance by September 16, 2024.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article, in English, by November 17, 2024.

Submission of a paper will be taken to imply that it is unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

The articles must not exceed 5,000/6,000-words in English (including references).

For editorial guidelines, please refer to the section “Guide for the authors” on the Comunicazioni sociali website: http://comunicazionisociali.vitaepensiero.com

Contributions will be submitted to a double blind peer review process.

The issue number 1/2025 of “Comunicazioni Sociali” will be published in April/May 2025. It will be available in open access on the journal website.

“Comunicazioni Sociali” is an OPEN ACCESS journal, indexed in Scopus, and it is an A-class rated journal by ANVUR in Cinema, photography, and television (L-ART/06), Performing arts (L-ART/05), and Sociology of culture and communication (SPS/08).