EXPERIENCING DIGITAL GAMES: USE, EFFECTS & CULTURE OF GAMING

Pre-Conference to ECREA’s fourth European Communication Conference, ECC 2012 (Istanbul, Turkey)

23 – 24 October 2011

In the past decades, digital games have diversified into a broad range of forms each with their specific interactions and experiences: from rapid button mashing in shooter games to group chat in role-playing games, to wild dancing in party games and to actual running around in a city and engaging with the environment in location-based mobile games. Thus digital games have increasingly come to be seen as generators of experiences rather than just sources of mediated content. You do not just receive games, you live them!

Understanding digital game experience presents an important challenge for present-day communication research. Not just is there a plethora of different types of games, the very fact that an experience occurs between the player and the mediated content implies that characteristics of the user, device, (social) context and culture at large need to be taken into account. In this regard, traditional use and effects models from communication studies and media psychology have proven useful but still fall short in describing and mapping the specificities of digital gaming. Digital game-specific theories and analytical frameworks on the other hand have often had a hard time linking up with mainstream communication and media research as they are often perceived as too idiosyncratic for use beyond digital gaming.

The pre-conference “Experiencing Digital Games” aims to bridge this gap and open a vital discussion on the use, effects and culture of digital gaming. To enable a broad discussion on the gaming experience, different disciplinary approaches, methods and perspectives are welcomed, including production research, content analyses, effects and use research, cultural analysis, design-oriented approaches etc.

Conference topics include (but are not limited to):

• Everyday experience & culture of digital games
• Use aspects of digital games
• Effects of digital game experiences
• Gamer characteristics and experiences
• Designing specific forms of game experience
• Comparisons of different forms of gaming
• Immersion & presence
• Game experience and motivations for playing
• Game content analysis and experience
• Methodologies for game experience research
• Avatars, identification and self-representation in virtual worlds
• Social interaction in digital games as a specific form of game experience
• General theoretical and empirical approaches regarding game experience

Abstracts

Anyone wishing to propose a paper for presentation at the conference is invited to submit an anonymized extended abstract of no more than four pages (10000 characters including spaces) in APA style to the organizing committee at the email address precon@digital-games.eu before 28 February 2012.

The abstracts will be subject to a peer review process. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 31 March 2012.

When submitting the abstract, please include a separate cover page including the following contact details:

• title
• name
• department/organization
• address
• e-mail

Abstracts should make it absolutely clear what the current status of the proposed work is. A preference is given to finished work ready for presentation (note: this includes theoretical/ conceptual papers, if the concept itself is the main object of presentation and not some related, yet unfinished empirical work). By sending in an abstract, the authors agree to personally present their research at the conference.

Location & Main Conference

ECC 2012 will take place at Bilgi University (Istanbul, Turkey) from 24-27 October 2012. Istanbul is Turkey’s largest city, and with more than 13 million inhabitants, it is one of the largest metropolitan areas in Europe. Located on the Bosphorus strait and stretching along the Golden Horn, the city is situated both in Europe and Asia. It offers a rich Roman, Christian and Ottoman heritage in its historic districts, as well as the pulsating street life of a modern city. Bilgi University, founded in 1994, has three centrally located campuses that are interconnected via Shuttle Buses. More information on the university can be found via Bilgi’s website: http://www.bilgi.edu.tr/en/

The main ECC conference will provide a broad platform to meet and discuss the profound transformations that are taking place globally in the mass mediated societies. The proposed theme “Social Media And Global Voices” opens a space for a vibrant discussion in the European academic scene. The main conference will offer a large variety of scientific panels, podium discussions and meetings. ECREA’s Sections, Networks, Temporary Working Groups will organize thematic sessions and or panels, covering a wider range of topics related to (mediated) communication.

More information on the ECC 2012 and the respective Calls for Proposals can be found here: http://www.ecrea2012istanbul.eu/

During the main conference, the Temporary Working Group will organize a Business Meeting and a Panel with invited speakers, presenting selected research findings to the main ECREA audience.

About the TWG “Digital Games Research”

The Temporary Working Group “Digital Games Research” was founded in 2011, giving European communication scholars interested in computer and video games research a dedicated home in ECREA.

Additional Information

The language of the pre-conference is English. Full papers should be ready at least two weeks before the conference (19 October 2012), so that conference participants have the opportunity to read them. Depending on the number, quality and coherence of the submissions, a publication of a proceedings volume will be considered.

Further information about the pre-conference can be found at the TWG’s website: www.digital-games.eu

We will update the website with the final programme and additional information in the coming months.

Real Bonding With Family Around the TV Via Skyp

Walt Mossberg
January 25, 2012

As you read these words, millions of people are conducting video chats using the popular Skype service, now owned by Microsoft. Most of these calls are low-resolution encounters between two individuals, conducted over personal computers.

This week, I tested a new device that aims to transform Skype video chats into room-size experiences, involving whole families or groups of friends on each end—seeing each other, chatting and sharing photos in high definition using TVs. It’s called telyHD, and comes from a small Silicon Valley start-up called Tely Labs. In my tests, it worked well.

This TV add-on product is a black, horizontal bar less than a foot long and under 3 inches high with a wide-angle lens and multiple built-in microphones. It installs quickly and easily—typically on top of the TV—and is controlled by a remote from across the room that can be used to place and answer calls, and to zoom and pan your image. It can connect to any other Skype-enabled device—including PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets—but some of its advanced features require a telyHD on both sides of the conversation.

The $250 telyHD isn’t just a different way to use Skype. It’s part of the race to reinvent the television—to make it a smarter, more versatile digital device. So-called smart TVs, Internet-enabled sets that connect to the Web and run apps, are offered by most major manufacturers. The telyHD device brings added functionality and connectivity to existing “dumb” HDTVs that lack built-in online features.

There is no monthly fee or subscription required by Tely Labs, and video calls between a telyHD and any other Skype device, including another telyHD, are free. You can also make free Skype-to-Skype audio calls, and audio calls to regular phones can be made at Skype’s normal rates.

I’ve been testing telyHD in my family room on my aging Pioneer 50-inch plasma HDTV. I made multiple calls to people at the company using other telyHD units. And, with my wife at my side, in our usual seats, we made video calls to each of our out-of-state children, who were using Skype-equipped computers.

On our end of the calls, we didn’t have to crowd around a laptop webcam, jump up to fiddle with the unit, or do anything different than if we had been watching TV. Our kids reported they could see and hear us both fine, even though we were about 10 feet from the camera. One person I tested with did report some audio feedback on her computer.

I can say that telyHD worked as advertised, and provided good, generally smooth experiences on every call, whether I used a wired network connection or Wi-Fi on my end. The calls to other telyHDs appeared in high definition on our screen, though the calls to computers were lower resolution, as with many Skype calls. And, if you’re concerned about rogue invasions of privacy, the telyHD has a sliding plastic shield to cover the camera when not in use.

You can buy telyHD from the company’s site, tely.com, or at Skype.com or Amazon.com. Ironically, it is hitting the market shortly after Cisco stopped selling a somewhat similar home video-calling product. Cisco’s product cost much more, wasn’t tied into Skype and carried a monthly fee.

TelyHD isn’t just a webcam. It’s a small computing device, powered by Google’s Android operating system. It contains software and Internet capabilities most TVs lack, some of which go beyond simple video calls. For instance, when contacting other telyHD units, I was able to send and receive video voice mails. And I was able to plug into the telyHD a flash memory card filled with pictures. I could share the pictures with another telyHD user and vice versa. I could even choose to copy a photo from the other party onto my own memory card. You can do the same thing with a USB drive.

(TelyHD isn’t the only way to use Skype for a whole-room view from a TV. Some of the new smart TVs, and even some Blu-ray players, come equipped with Skype software. When paired with a webcam, they, too, can conduct Skype video calls via the TV. I didn’t test these for this column.)

TelyHD can be placed on top of the TV, on a shelf, or on a tripod. It requires a broadband Internet connection, either wired or wireless, and an HDMI port on the TV, which is common on HDTVs. It mounts on top of even thin TVs using a built-in clamp that doesn’t require tools. I set up my test unit in about 15 minutes.

The system can’t be used simultaneously with regular TV-watching. Just as with a DVD player, you must switch to a separate “input” on your TV to bring it up. When you do, it signs you into your Skype account and fills the screen with a carousel of big cards representing your Skype contacts. You click on a card with the remote to place or answer a call. There are various screen layouts you can choose, including a small window that shows what you look like to others and windows that show tips on what the remote buttons do.

My only serious complaint with telyHD is that the remote control seems cheap, with hard-to-press buttons. But the company says it has designed an improved remote and will offer this new one free to existing owners. Also, as with many TV services, it’s a pain to peck out user names, or searches, on an on-screen keyboard. And I found a bug in which the unit didn’t recognize certain Wi-Fi network names, but the company fixed it earlier this week.

Tely Labs plans more versions of telyHD and more features. A pricier model for small businesses is in the works, which will allow live file sharing, and have a better camera and a keyboard. A second software version also is coming. It will allow the unit to send to the TV screen video from Apple’s iPad and will also support photo sharing from online services.

The company is working on allowing video calling among up to 10 devices, though that will carry a fee.

I can recommend telyHD for people with HDTVs who want to move their Skype video calling to where whole groups can get into the picture.

3-year Doctoral Studentships
Closing date for applications: 9th March 2012

City University London is continuing its investment in academic excellence by offering up to 70 fully-funded, full-time, 3-year Doctoral Studentships for entry in October 2012.

As part of this initiative, the Centre for HCI Design (HCID) in the School of Informatics invites applications from well-qualified candidates wishing to join our vibrant research community.  We are looking for applicants who are interested in undertaking innovative and inspirational research in areas including:

• Novel interfaces: mobile and pervasive interactive systems, inclusive interaction for users with disabilities, intelligent user interfaces, tabletop and multi-touch interaction, evaluation, end-user programming of intelligent and recommender systems
• Creativity and innovation in design thinking, new digital design tools and techniques
• Collaborative work in domains including healthcare, creativity, social computing
• Service centric systems, ubiquitous design tools, scenario-driven software engineering, creative requirements and software design, ubiquitous requirements engineering
• Digital libraries, digital information use, information seeking, search engine usability

The studentships include a full tuition fee waiver, an annual bursary (£15,500 for 2012/13, expected to rise in line with inflation in subsequent years) and a one-off allowance of £1,000 for conference attendance, equipment etc.  Continuation of the award after the first year is subject to confirmation of satisfactory progress.  Recipients will usually be expected to undertake some form of teaching support activity in their second and third years as part of the studentship arrangements, by agreement with the School.  Support for the development of research skills is also provided.

Applications

Applicants should have at least a 2.1 Honours Degree or equivalent in a relevant subject.  Applications should be made on the PhD application form and should be accompanied by a CV, proof of academic qualifications, two references and a research proposal.  Please state on the application form that you wish to be considered for a University studentship.

Completed applications should be sent to Mark Firman (mfirman@soi.city.ac.uk) at the School of Informatics, City University London, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, by the closing date of 9th March 2012.

Applicants are encouraged to discuss their application and their research proposal with the Senior Tutor for Research in HCID, Stephanie Wilson (steph@soi.city.ac.uk), in advance of submitting an application.  The research proposal is an important part of the application and will be considered during the selection process.  The proposal (maximum 3 sides of A4 plus references) should include: abstract, clearly set out research objectives, the methodology to be used in the research, brief review of relevant research literature and an indication of what the proposed research would contribute to the discipline, outlined workplan, statement of why you wish to pursue the topic and what you will bring to it.

Further details:

Further details of the studentships are available at:
http://www.city.ac.uk/studentships

Full details of how to submit a studentship application to the School of Informatics are available at:
http://www.city.ac.uk/informatics/postgraduate/phd-research-studies/how-to-apply

And information about the Centre for HCI Design can be found at:
http://hcid.soi.city.ac.uk/

A Mirrored Installation Lets You Crawl Up Walls Like Spider-Man

“Bâtiment (Building)” uses simple mirrors instead of digital trickery to create a vertigo-inducing illusion.

By John Pavlus

Augmented reality! Kinect hacks! Enormous video projections! We’ve seen all kinds of wacky digital ways of making immersive, arty illusions. Here’s what we love about Bâtiment (Building) by Leandro Erlich: It just uses mirrors. To do what? How about float in midair, scale a building like Spider-Man, or defy gravity like someone in an Escher drawing (or David Bowie in Labyrinth). Is that “immersive” enough for you?

The design trick behind Erlich’s installation is child’s play: Build the facade of a building on flat ground, and then erect an enormous mirror standing perpendicular to it. The “building” is reflected, life-sized and standing-up, in the mirror. But because the physical facade is safely on the ground, anyone can walk around or lay down or otherwise playfully pose themselves on it, and look up to see themselves “stuck to” the mirror-building’s vertical surface.

Cheap trick? Maybe, but it’s the attention to detail writ large that makes Bâtiment feel more authentic than any digital simulation. It’s not like the flat building-facade is a simplified schematic or diagram–it’s got all the detail and weathering and interior lighting that a real building would. Which makes its mirror-image completely convincing–and the incongruous presence of the people “on” it viscerally vertigo-inducing. No digital projection or holographic simulation can yet match the perfect, simple fidelity of photons bounced off of shiny metal. Kudos to Erlich for reminding us that even in 2012, we can still be aesthetically transported by simple trompe l’oeil.

A Special Issue edited by:
Melissa de Zwart, Adelaide Law School, Australia
Greg Lastowka, Rutgers School of Law-Camden, USA
Dan Hunter, New York Law School. USA

The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research (http://www.jvwresearch.org/) is an online, open access academic journal that engages a wide spectrum of scholarship and welcomes contributions from the many disciplines and approaches that intersect virtual worlds research. The field of virtual worlds research is a continuously evolving area of study that spans across many disciplines and the JVWR editorial team looks forward to engaging a wide range of creative and scholarly work.

Motivation and Scope

This special issue will focus on legal questions generated by the creation, regulation and participation in virtual worlds. We are looking for papers that explore beyond the basics of ‘the magic circle’ (asserting that virtual worlds are immune from external laws and norms) and consider emerging legal issues that may encourage or inhibit the uptake of virtual worlds. In particular, we are interested in papers that adopt a multi-jurisdictional focus and which propose new ways that the legal issues may be approached by developers and regulators. Innovative and creative papers are encouraged.

Given the audience and nature of the JVWR we are looking for papers which are accessible to a non-legal readership. They should demonstrate a good awareness of the nature of virtual worlds.

Authors are invited to submit papers that are innovative, original, and contribute to the advancement of understanding of law as it applies to virtual worlds. Papers will be considered by the Guest Editorial Board and reviewed by expert referees using our double -open policy. Double-open policy means that in general, authors do not need to anonymize their papers, and reviewers identity is also known to authors. For more details about see JVWR site –> About JVWR –> For Authors –> Our double-Open Policy.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Jurisdiction and rule-making
• Governance and community management
• Player rights
• Virtual property
• Dispute resolution
• Intellectual property, modding, user-generated content
• Privacy, identity and data collection
• Security and hacking
• Crime
• Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, discrimination, access and hate speech

Submission Instructions

Authors are invited to submit papers of up to 6000 words (including footnotes and references) via the JVWR publishing system (see www.jvwreserach.org> about > for authors). Accepted papers will be published online in the Volume 6, Number 2 of the Journal, 2013.

Deadlines and Timeline

Authors can submit a 600 word abstract as of the publication of the call.

Please use the Journal publishing system (login at the top right of the journal site, state that your submission is for the Legal issue.)

Abstract submission will give authors quick feedback on the relevance and appropriateness of their topic and allow editors to identify reviewers as soon as possible.

• Final deadline for Authors to submit abstracts for Editors’ comments: 30 June 2012
• Editors submit comments on the Abstracts to Authors: 30 Aug 2012
• Authors submit full paper: 30 Dec 2012
• Editors send Reviewers’ feedback on the paper, and indication of acceptance or rejection: 15 February 2013
• Submission of revised paper (if necessary): 30 April 2013
• Editors’ decision and comments for accepted papers: 20 May 2013
• Authors Submission of final version: 15 June 2013
• Staff editors & authors work till planned Publication Date: 15 July 2013

Further Information

Please contact:

Melissa de Zwart, Adelaide Law School, melissadez AT gmail.com
Greg Lastowka, Rutgers School of Law-Camden, lastowka AT camden.rutgers.edu
Dan Hunter, New York Law School, USA

[Image: Ari Hollander/Hunter Hoffman]

Burning Man

On his first tour of duty in Afghanistan, Sam Brown was set on fire by an improvised explosive device. He survived, only to find himself, like thousands of other vets, doomed to a post-traumatic life of unbearable pain. Even hallucinogen-grade drugs offered little relief, and little hope.

Then his doctors told him about an experimental treatment, a painkilling video game supposedly more effective than morphine. If successful, it would deliver Brown from his living hell into a strange new world—a digital winter wonderland

By Jay Kirk
February 2012

[snip]

Hunter Hoffman hadn’t set out to help burn patients. As a cognitive psychologist—who had gotten his start back in the ’80s conducting experiments at Princeton to test the mind’s ability to discern between real and false memories—he had begun experimenting with virtual reality as a treatment for arachnophobes. Using a VR game he’d designed called SpiderWorld (see box), he had helped a number of individuals so crippled by fear that they had to seal up their windows to sleep. Outfitted with virtual-reality goggles, the patient began at the far end of a virtual kitchen, opposite the counter, upon which was a small, barely visible spider. Once the fight-or-flight response had subsided, the patient could inch closer until he could stand being close enough to see the spider’s reflection in the toaster’s chrome finish. Hoffman had created a world that people could enter, reemerging with their nightmares erased. It was an artificial world with the power to transform meaning itself in the so-often-insufferable sphere known as the real.

One day in 1994, a colleague of Hoffman’s told him he’d been observing patients at a burn center using hypnosis to control pain. His colleague wasn’t exactly sure how the treatment worked, but he thought it had something to do with distraction.

“Distraction?” Hoffman said. “I’ll show you distraction,” and he showed his friend SpiderWorld.

Not long after, Hoffman went to meet the hypnotist himself, who agreed VR sounded like a pretty good idea. On the very first burn patient they tried, SpiderWorld worked. He simply forgot to think about his pain. Still, stoves and toasters didn’t seem right, considering—kind of cruel, really. So Hoffman hired a world builder to make something else, something colder, fireproof.

Later, after Hoffman became director of the Virtual Reality Analgesia Research Center at the University of Washington Human Interface Technology Laboratory, or HITLab, he had some remarkable success. Using $35,000 goggles—the sort of hardware ordinarily used for training fighter pilots—researchers obtained drops in pain ratings by 30 to 50 percent.

If distraction was the key, why not just use over-the-counter video games for a fraction of the cost? To answer that question, Hoffman had run a control experiment. In his first case study, he had a teenager with a severe flash burn play Nintendo Mario Kart while having five staples removed from a skin graft. The data showed that in terms of reducing pain, anxiety about pain, and time spent thinking about pain, playing Nintendo Mario Kart compared poorly to SpiderWorld. The reason VR was so much more effective than a regular video game came down to a quality called “presence”—that sense of being immersed inside an artificial world.

In 2006, Hoffman presented his findings at a DoD conference on combat-casualty care. The most prominent image Hoffman had played on the screen had been a giant digital snowman, somewhat menacing in mien. Yet it was hard for all the high brass in the room to ignore the two 3-D brain scans comparing activity in the region of the mind known as the pain matrix. In the scan of a patient who had received only conventional opioids during wound care, the matrix was lit up like a cortical pool of lava. The other brain—the brain on VR—was a cooling star. “According to our results,” Hoffman said, “VR not only reduces pain perception; it changes the way the brain processes pain signals.” A day or so after the conference, he got a call from Colonel John Holcomb, commander of the army’s Institute of Surgical Research, or ISR, at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

ISR was a unit born during World War II, in part out of the need to find better ways to treat thermal injuries, in anticipation of the waves of atomic-burn casualties that many reasonable, if gloomy, individuals regarded as inevitable. Ironically, sixty years later, those new techniques were being used more than ever, in response not to the most sophisticated weapons on earth but to the most crudely effective. An approximate 70 percent of injuries and deaths of U.S. troops this decade have involved an IED.

“Hoffman, we need VR,” Colonel Holcomb said when he called. “Make it happen. Get it over here.”

[snip]

It was once he was off the ICU, in the step-down unit, that Maani came in one day and asked if Sam would be interested in taking part in a research trial. He consented, along with eleven other soldiers in the burn unit. He probably would have consented to just about anything now if it promised relief. Soon thereafter, doctors wheeled an apparatus into his room, a robotic-arm-type thing with what looked like a welder’s mask affixed to one end. This was the delivery system for a state-of-the-art virtual-reality game, they explained. It was called SnowWorld.

···

When they first lowered the goggles over his eyes, Brown was not all that impressed. He found himself floating through a kind of glacial canyon, but the overall vibe was pretty kiddie. Snowflakes wheeled gently from a digital sky. Snowmen and penguins lined up on ledges along the fjord. The soundtrack was kind of lame, too. Kind of an upbeat chirpy world music, a catchy-against-your-will kind of thing that he’d never heard before. If you’ll be my bodyguard, I can be your loo-ong lost pal, the lyrics went.

But there was no question Sam felt very much inside this Disneyesque world on ice, and it was a hell of a lot better than being present while they yanked and pulled at his petrified shoulders. So he tried to get into the game. A few milligrams of Dilaudid didn’t hurt.

The action of the mouse allowed him to fire off snowballs as fast as he could click. He had, more or less, a snowball M16. When one of the snowmen lobbed a big misshapen snowball at him, magically unholstering it from its hip with its stick arm, he took it out with three controlled head shots. The first shot turned the snowman to ice, freezing it with its arm served back, mid-lob. A third sent an explosion of ice shrapnel raining down into the canyon. Eerily, its disembodied face, the charcoal eyes and carrot nose and button teeth, lingered in the air for a few seconds afterward.

I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me…

He passed under a low overhang, a kind of narrow passage in the bluish opalescent icy wall, strafed a couple of igloos, and then turned his attention to a squad of penguins flapping their wings further up the escarpment.

After a few circuits, he realized that each time he went through the cavern by the waterfall and then came back out, all the snowmen and penguins he’d killed were resurrected. It was a game that could not be won. So to make it more interesting, he began to test how to ricochet snowballs off the canyon wall and make carom shots. He started thinking trajectory. He thought ballistics, correcting his maximum ordinates before laying down wave after wave of penguin annihilation.

When he stopped shooting, he could hear the trickle of the river moving underneath him, and he took a moment to notice that he was suspended in air, floating along, out of his body. Everything moved in slow motion, just a few frames slower than reality, which was relaxing. As he passed beside the waterfall, he felt a tug of pain from the outside world but then directed his attention to the flying fish leaping below. He fired off a few shots, and his snowballs splashed up with blue steam.

Don’t wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard, bone digger, bone digger.

Sam found out quickly that the woolly mammoths wading below were indestructible. Shoot them and they only trumpeted angrily, so he didn’t bother wasting any more rounds. Sometimes the snowfall waned, the sky turned blue, and then the snow started again. Between Paul Simon, the indoor waterfall, and the sedated peripatetic tempo, the whole place kind of had the feel of a suburban mall. Except, of course, here you could machine-gun everything in sight guilt-free.

The truth was, he was rather enjoying it. It wasn’t like he could feel a cold breeze blowing through his hair or any bullshit like that, but being down in that digital wintry realm, it did have a certain effect, enough that he found himself drifting back to the last time he’d gone skiing with Daniel, his brother, at the same resort in Colorado where his family had always gone on Christmas break, this last trip being during his final year at West Point. He and Daniel had gone skiing backcountry, off the trails, well beyond where the tourists went, so they had it all to themselves. They had found a bowl that was pure and untouched, the powder so deep they’d just floated down the whole way, the best skiing of his life. He also remembered the crazy stunt his brother had pulled that Christmas, cracking everyone up, when he’d gone on a black-diamond run almost naked, busting down the mountain in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and red-and-white-striped elf tights, the pom-pom on his red Santa hat flipping back and forth. It was only as he got closer, almost to the bottom, that you could see the rubber skull mask, and when he skidded to a stop, his laughter was muted by the mask, the steam of his breath huffing out the rubber eyeholes.

Before Sam knew it, the game was over. His therapists were taking off the goggles. “We’re already done?” He still had a whole village of igloos left to liquidate.

When they went through the list of questions, Sam was surprised to hear himself say that his observed pain had only been a 6. The therapists were pleased, and maybe a bit surprised as well, to tell him that they had gotten more range of motion than previously.

“Really?” But it was true, Sam had only been vaguely aware of the pain, mostly when it had caused him to muff a shot. The game play was like a white noise that canceled out the pain—as great a relief as he’d gotten so far during therapy, better even than morphine.

Later on, Hunter Hoffman came in to explain how it worked. Sam immediately liked Hoffman, who must have been about 50 but had the wispy blond hair and boyish energetic demeanor of a surfer on some kind of mission impossible. He liked hearing Hoffman break apart the mechanics of how his mind and his pain operated. How giving pain attention meant giving pain meaning, and how meaning amplified the experience of pain. How his conscious attention was like a spotlight. “Usually,” Hoffman said, “it is focused on the pain during your wound care, but we’re luring that spotlight into the virtual world.”

Sam thought about one of the questions they had asked when he’d finished: “While experiencing the virtual world, to what extent did you feel like you WENT INSIDE the computer-generated world?”

0 = I did not feel like I went inside at all
1–4 = mild sense of going inside
5–6 = moderate sense of going inside
7–9 = strong sense of going inside
10 = I went completely inside the virtual world

He had answered “moderate” for that one. But everything was relative. When it came to being inside virtual worlds, he was a veteran. He knew a thing or two about immersion. SnowWorld did not even compare to KetamineWorld. KetamineWorld was a solid 10 for presence. Still, he fixed Hoffman with his brown eyes and said, “I think you guys are onto something.”

[snip]

While he was suffering through his post-op recovery, Maani contacted him to say that if he was still interested, he could come back in for another dose of SnowWorld. He needed to demonstrate it for a few visiting officials. Sam leapt at the chance. He didn’t care if he had an audience.

But once he donned the goggles, the experience fell short of what he remembered. It still did an okay job, but now, somehow, the distractions—the music, the demonically happy snowmen, the exploding penguins—felt more like sensory overload. That, but also, he wasn’t a patient in this hospital anymore, nor was he caught in that lonely gray limbo of an apartment. He had a real home now, where Amy and a little peace and quiet were waiting.

[snip]

Last July, Maani and Hoffman published the results of the study in which Sam Brown had participated. Echoing the civilian studies, soldiers reported significant drops in pain while immersed in SnowWorld. Time spent thinking about pain, which is an inextricable contributor to actual pain, dropped from 76 percent without SnowWorld to 22 percent with SnowWorld. Amazingly, some of the biggest drops were for the most severe levels of pain, which went against every previous expectation. Since then, SnowWorld has received a good deal of enthusiasm from several well-lit corners of the Pentagon. At least one four-star general, after seeing the results from the ISR study, has gone so far as to say that he foresees a day coming soon when VR pain distraction might become standard care. There is nearly equal excitement about Hoffman’s other applications, including one called IraqWorld, a virtual-reality exposure therapy he built to treat soldiers with PTSD.

Hoffman knows that more studies need to be done before VR becomes a regular part of a medic’s field kit. To that end, he and his colleagues at HITLab are now using $7.5 million in NIH grants to further investigate how VR affects the mind and how better to apply it in clinical situations. One part of the study is looking at using small doses of ketamine to enhance the sense of presence. But he is confident that eventually, as the technology becomes more sophisticated, VR will be exponentially more effective. Soon, he predicts, VR worlds will be customized, personally tailored, and as in social networks or Second Life, they’ll allow patients to bring along other people—a vet’s mother, girlfriend, buddies. Hoffman imagines programs that will tap into a patient’s happy memories—of a ski vacation or a honeymoon or a morning rowing on a river, sunlight dripping from the oars.

Hoffman can also see battlefield applications. Customized VR worlds will be pre-programmed right into the soldier’s eye gear. He’s already experimenting with piezoelectric crystals to that end. It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to imagine a near future in which combat patients could simultaneously distract themselves from their own pain while inflicting it on a virtual and remote enemy. A soldier could put his mind inside a drone instead of watching as a medic changed his bandages. In such a future of techno-utopian warfare, at least for those combatants equipped to fight outside the pain matrix, victory will indeed belong to those who have rid themselves of the inconvenience of being men and who, for all we know, may as well bleed snow.

[snip to end]

Jay Kirk is the author of Kingdom Under Glass, just out in paperback.

Editors

Dr Kristina Niedderer, University of Wolverhampton, UK
email: k.niedderer@wlv.ac.uk

Dr Katherine Townsend, Nottingham Trent University
email: katherine.townsend@ntu.ac.uk

Submission

The final date for submission of contributions for the fourth issue is Friday 1 June 2012.

For guidance notes or further information, or to submit an article or review, please contact the editors or visit the journal’s website for details: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=172/

Aims & Scope

Craft Research is the first peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to the development and advance of contemporary craft practice and theory through research. The aim of Craft Research is to portray and build the crafts as a vital and viable modern discipline that offers a vision for the future and for the sustainable development of human social, economical and ecological issues. This role of craft is rooted in its flexible nature as a conduit from design at one end to art at the other. It gains its strength from its at times experimental, at times developmental nature, which enables craft to explore and challenge technology, to question and develop cultural and social practices, and to interrogate philosophical and human values.

Call for Papers

Craft Research aims to actively promote and strengthen this future-oriented role of the crafts. In order to do so, it recognises inter and cross disciplinary practices, and encourages diverse approaches to research arising from practice, theory and philosophy. It welcomes contributions from new and established researchers, scholars, and professionals around the world who wish to make a contribution to advancing the crafts. Contributions may include research into materials, technology, processes, methods, concepts, aesthetics and philosophy, etc. in any discipline area of the applied arts and crafts, including craft education. Craft Research welcomes a number of different types of contributions as set out below.

Contributions

Full Research Papers (4000-6000 words):

• They will describe completed research projects, including research problem, questions, methods, outcomes, and findings. They should include original work of a research and/or developmental nature and/or propose new methods or ideas that are clearly and thoroughly presented and argued.

Short Research Papers / Position Papers (2000-3000 words):

• Short Research Papers may describe smaller research projects or research in progress including research problem, questions, methods, (expected) outcomes and findings. They are an opportunity to new researchers/practitioners to get into publishing.
• Position papers may put forward and debate a position on a particular (current) issue (e.g. new technology, material, theoretical, social or educational issue). Both should include original work of a research or developmental nature and/or propose new methods or ideas that are clearly and thoroughly presented and argued.

Both should include original work of a research and/or developmental nature and/or propose new methods or ideas that are clearly and thoroughly presented and argued. They are an opportunity for new researchers/practitioners to have their research/work published.

Craft & Industry Reports (1500-3000 words):

Reports of Investigative Practice from Craft & Industry should present an advance in and for the field, including collaborations and new developments of work, processes, methods, ideas etc. by practitioners and industry in the crafts.

Review Section. We invite reviews of the following:

• The Portrait Section (1000-2000 words) Will feature the work of an individual (crafts person, artist, designer, maker, researcher) within the field whose creative work stands out for its developmental / research qualities and contribution to the crafts.
• The Exhibition Section (1000-2000 words) Will feature scholarly reviews of exhibitions that are of particular developmental / research significance for the field for the technical, conceptual, aesthetic, social etc. quality of the work or for the curation.
• The Publication Review (1000-2000 words) Will feature reviews of publications in print and new media.
• The Conference Section (1000-2000 words) Will feature reviews of any relevant conferences/symposia/etc. in the field.

Calendar of Exhibitions & Conferences:

We invite notifications of important and relevant forthcoming craft exhibitions and craft conferences/research events.

Remarkable Image Section:

We invite the submission of images of outstanding quality for their novelty, beauty, complexity, simplicity, challenging nature, humour, humanity, etc. that are representative of contemporary crafts developments and research.

Petros Vrellis Makes Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ Interactive

Posted: 02/10/2012 4:08 pm

Imagine being Vincent Van Gogh. Imagine giving form to “Starry Night” with your hands. With the help of Petros Vrellis, playing the artist instead of the observer is now possible.

The Greek artist created an interactive template of “Starry Night” — through the use of open source C++ toolkit openFrameworks, Vrellis made a touch interface that allows the viewer to repaint the piece of art.

As the viewer drags his finger across the painting, the dashed oil lines react, creating a river-like effect of blues and golds over the night sky. With each brushstroke movement, a soft note of ambient music rings out as well.

The work that went into creating such an elaborate piece of art is impressive. Vrellis took a piece with a seemingly unsurpassable amount of artistic merit, and breathed new life into it.

Watch a [4:11 minute] video of Pteros Vrellis’ “Starry Night” interactive:

Starry Night (interactive animation) from Petros Vrellis on Vimeo.

Symposium for AISB / IACAP World Congress 2012 – Alan Turing 2012

In recognition of the Turing Centenary, the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) will convene a joint meeting with the International Association of Computing and Philosophy (IACAP) on 2-6 July 2012 at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.

As part of this meeting, we are hosting a symposium titled The Machine Question: AI, Ethics, and Moral Responsibility. The symposium, which will take place 3-4 July 2012, seeks to bring philosophers, AI scientists, robotics engineers, and other researchers together in order to investigate and discuss the current state of and future possibilities for machine morality.  Questions to be discussed include:

• What kind of moral claim might an intelligent or autonomous machine have?
• Is it possible for a machine to be a legitimate moral agent and/or moral patient?
• What are the philosophical grounds supporting such a claim?
• And what would it mean to articulate and practice an ethics of this claim?

The Machine Question: AI, Ethics and Moral Responsibility seeks to address, evaluate, and respond to these and related questions.

Submissions and Timeline

Please send extended abstracts (500-800 words) and contact information to David Gunkel dgunkel@niu.edu and Joanna Bryson j.j.bryson@bath.ac.uk

Abstracts should be prepared for blind review, provided in pdf format, and sent via email attachment no later than 2 March 2012. Acceptance/rejection decisions will be made and communicated by 16 March 2012. Final papers should be delivered no later than 27 April 2012 to ensure inclusion in the symposium proceedings.

Symposium Co-Chairs

• Joanna Bryson, University of Bath (UK)
• David J. Gunkel, Northern Illinois University (USA)
• Steve Torrance, University of Sussex (UK)

Structure and Proceedings

The Machine Question is one of three symposia in the Ethics, Morality, AI and Mind cluster, which also includes the symposia Moral Cognition and Theory of Mind and Framework for Responsible Research and Innovation in Artificial Intelligence. There will be separate proceedings for each participating symposium, produced and distributed to participants before the Congress.

About the Congress

AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012 serves as the year’s AISB Convention and IACAP conference. The Congress was inspired by a desire to honour Alan Turing, and the broad and deep significance of Turing’s work to AI, the philosophical ramifications of computing, and philosophy and computing more generally. The Congress is one of the events forming the Alan Turing Year

The intent of the Congress is to stimulate a particularly rich interchange between AI and Philosophy on any areas of mutual interest, whether directly addressing Turing’s own research output or not. The Congress will consist mainly of a number of collocated Symposia on specific research areas, interspersed with Congress-wide refreshment breaks, social events and invited Plenary Talks. All papers other than the invited Plenaries will be given within Symposia.

Additional Information

• AISB
• IACAP
• Turing 2012
• AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012

Man Plays With Dog From Work With Robotic Surrogate

by Max Eddy | February 11th, 2012

Jordan Correa and his wife had a problem. Because they both worked full-time jobs, they weren’t able to spend time at home during the day with their new dog Darwin. Instead of painfully readjusting their lives, Correa did what any man with training in robotics and engineering would do: He built a telepresence robot surrogate that he could control from work to play with his dog. You know, the obvious solution.

Correa’s creation, which he calls DarwinBot, uses a Parallax EDDIE chasis and programmed with the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4. Which is convenient, because Correa is a developer in Micorsoft’s robotics division. The bot has several dog-friendly tools built in, such as a treat dispenser, a ball-launching ballista, a ball-retrieving robotic arm, and speakers so Darwin can hear his master’s voice.

Using the onboard slate PC, Skype, and a pan-and-tilt webcam, Correa can interact fairly naturally with Darwin. The bot also packs a Kinect camera system on top for obstacle avoidance and a downward facing webcam for ball retrieval. The whole thing is controlled over the Internet with an XBox 360 controller.

While it may seem hard to believe that this rolling mess of wires and cameras could command a dog’s attention, or at least not terrify it, Darwin seems to play well with DarwinBot. He comes when called, responds to some basic commands, and plays fetch with the robot. Whether or not Darwin recognizes Correa is another matter altogether, however. It seems more likely to me that the pup thinks of DarwinBot as the weird thing that throws balls and drops food on the ground when no one else is around.