Panel: Spaces of Play: Geographies and Cartographies of Games and Gaming
Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) 2015
Montreal, March 25-29, 2015
Deadline: August 15th, 2014
The field of virtual geography and game mapping is as expansive and multifaceted as virtual worlds themselves. The history of games is rife with histories of the ways in which players explore them, from mazes and dungeons to descriptive spaces in text adventures. Game spaces invite both detailed route‐planning and virtual dérives reminiscent of filmic city symphonies like Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera, while the criticism orbiting game worlds ranges from fan practices like screen-stitching to commercial designs of massive online spaces. This panel will build upon the rich foundations of game geography research, spatial theory, and virtual cartography. We invite abstract proposals for papers that address and expand upon work being done on the following topics:
- Practices of constructing virtual environments in game development
- Player and NPC circulation through game worlds
- Player mapping practices both within and external to game worlds
- Maps, compasses, and HUDs
- Player guides and other cartographic paratexts
- Fan maps, geographic modding, and level editors
- Limited vision and omnipresence
- Virtual geography and digital representations of real-world locations
- Transmedia geographies
- Political economies in digital space (Lefevbre)
- Walkthroughs and let’s‐plays
- 2D and 3D digital environments
- Art practices and spatial documentation in games
- Race, conflict, and territorial strategies
- Urban planning in game spaces
- Psychogeographies of game worlds
Please send abstracts of 300 words accompanied by a 100-word bio to kalervo.sinervo@gmail.com by August 15th, 2014. Responses to successful submissions will be sent out no later than August 18th.
Contact:
Kalervo A. Sinervo
Ph.D. Student, Humanities program
Concordia University
514 880 6587
kalervo.sinervo@gmail.com
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