ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: July 2022

Call: Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image (SCSMI) 2023 Conference

Call for Papers

Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image 2023 Conference
May 31-June 3, 2023
Wilmington, North Carolina, USA
Hosted by the Film Studies Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington
http://scsmi-online.org/conference

Deadline for proposals: Midnight (EST) December 12, 2022

The Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image (SCSMI) invites proposals for presentations at its annual conference to be held May 31-June 3, 2023, at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in the United States. SCSMI is an interdisciplinary organization of scholars interested in cognitive, philosophical, aesthetic, historical, psychological, neuroscientific, and evolutionary approaches to the analysis of film and other moving image media. Presentations should facilitate the society’s mission: to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue between moving image theorists, historians, critics, and philosophers, and scientifically-oriented researchers working on moving image media.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINESread more. “Call: Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image (SCSMI) 2023 Conference”

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New zoo virtual reality experience puts you nose to nose with gorillas

[The new Gorilla Trek Virtual Reality Experience from Immotion is designed to use presence to engage, entertain, inform, build empathy and encourage conservation. The story below from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel provides details and describes audience member responses. Coverage from OnMilwaukee (with the headline of this post) adds this indirect reference to presence from Immotion Group Commercial Director Rod Findley: “People come out of Gorilla Trek and they really feel they have been transported to a different world.” The attraction is now also available at the Pittsburgh Zoo (follow the link for a description and a vivid 30 second trailer featuring content clips and audience reactions). Findley provides more context in a 35 second video from Immotion and a 9 minute interview from DirectorsTalk on Vimeo. See “The 360°, 25K gorilla experience backed by Hollywood stars” from AV Interactive for coverage of a related attraction; the story begins with this:

“Habitat XR has launched an immersive theatre that can screen 360° films in 25K resolution at the Ellen DeGeneres campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda.… read more. “New zoo virtual reality experience puts you nose to nose with gorillas”

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Call: FDG 2023: The 18th Foundations of Digital Games

Call for Papers

FDG 2023: The 18th Foundations of Digital Games
Lisbon, Portugal
April 11-14, 2023
http://fdg2023.org

Submission deadline: November 4, 2022

The 18th Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) held in Lisbon, Portugal, invites all research contributions in the form of papers, posters, demos, doctoral consortium applications, as well as panels, competitions and workshop proposals. We invite contributions from within and across any discipline committed to advancing knowledge on the foundations of games: computer science, engineering, mathematics, natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, arts and design.

Topics include [full descriptions here: http://fdg2023.org/tracks/]:

  • Technical Game Development, Novel Controllers
  • Game Design, Studio Practices, Novel Mechanics, Novel Experiences
  • Game Analytics and Visualization
  • Game Artificial Intelligence
  • Game Criticism and Analysis
  • Games Beyond Entertainment

AUTHOR INFORMATION… read more. “Call: FDG 2023: The 18th Foundations of Digital Games”

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Researchers use VR and presence to test effects of urban design choices on wellbeing

[This story from Frontiers Science News describes new research that uses virtual reality and presence to test the effects of simple urban design choices on wellbeing; see the original open-access journal article for full details. For interesting, related developments, see the example-filled DesignTAXI story “Artist Uses DALL-E To Make Real Streets Much More User-Friendly,” about how an artist is using “the popular DALL-E 2 art-generating AI as a landscape-planning tool, envisioning public spaces to finally be returned to the public.” –Matthew]

[Image: Colorful virtual reality cityscape. Credit: A. Batistatou, F. Vandeville, and Y.N. Delevoye-Turrell]

Colorful urban environments, even if just in virtual reality, promote wellbeing

Urban environments can be drab and stressful, but introducing vegetation or colorful designs could improve the wellbeing of city dwellers. A new study investigated the potential of these simple interventions using a virtual reality simulation. It found that green vegetation was pleasurable for volunteers, whereas colorful designs increased curiosity and fascination.read more. “Researchers use VR and presence to test effects of urban design choices on wellbeing”

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Call: Workshop on Digital Citizenship at Radboud University

[Note: The focus of this workshop isn’t explicitly presence-related but there are obvious connections. –Matthew]

CALL FOR REGISTRATION/PAPERS

Workshop on Digital Citizenship
September 1-2, 2022
Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands)
https://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind2207&L=PHILOS-L&P=336426

We hereby would like to announce a workshop to be hosted on digital citizenship. There are also still a few slots open for presentations. If you’re interested in giving a talk that fits the workshop theme, please get in touch with the organization (details below).

WORKSHOP INFO

The idea of citizenship holds an important position in western political thought and different conceptions of citizenship have been proposed and challenged. Some focus on citizenship as a legal status which ensures the enjoyment of a selection of rights. Other conceptions of citizenship connect it to political participation, the presence of civility and civic virtue, or even with a shared, collective identity.

The rising importance of information technology challenges our understanding of citizenship.… read more. “Call: Workshop on Digital Citizenship at Radboud University”

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Medical telepresence: New tech allows doctors to travel inside of your body

[As this story from VentureBeat notes, the vision of a company called Endiatx in which patients receive a small robotic ‘pill’ in the mail, swallow it during a telemedicine appointment, and a doctor controls the device remotely with a tablet or phone to explore the patient’s body via teleoperation, is the stuff of science fiction. But apparently this vision is well on its way to becoming reality. See the original version of the story for three more images. And see a May 2022 ISPR Presence News post for more on author Louis Rosenberg’s early experiences with augmented reality and haptics. –Matthew]

[Image: Pillbot™ robotic drone that gets swallowed by medical patients. Credit: Endiatx]

Medicine and the metaverse: New tech allows doctors to travel inside of your body

By Louis Rosenberg, Unanimous A.I.
July 24, 2022

The world of technology is rapidly shifting from flat media viewed in the third person to immersive media experienced in the first person.… read more. “Medical telepresence: New tech allows doctors to travel inside of your body”

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Call: “Enhancing Quality of Life and Health with ICT” – International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH)

Call for Papers

“Enhancing Quality of Life and Health with ICT”
Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH)
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph/special_issues/Health_ICT

Deadline for manuscript submissions: July 31, 2022

NOTE from the guest editors:

IJERPH normally requires a publication fee, but we are waiving this fee for up to 10 authors of the special issue. You are invited to submit contributions, ten of which will be free of all publishing costs if accepted by the journal after peer reviews. We hope that you can make use of this opportunity to publish in this prestigious journal.

Prof. Dr. John Waterworth E-Mail Website
Department of Informatics, Umeå University, Sweden
Interests: HCI and user psychology; ICT for successful ageing; ICT and health

Prof. Dr. Mark Chignell Website SciProfiles
Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada
Interests: human factors; aging technologies; user interface design; healthcare ergonomics; social computing

Dear Colleagues,

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an increasingly important component of modern society, touching almost every aspect of our lives.… read more. “Call: “Enhancing Quality of Life and Health with ICT” – International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH)”

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‘It Follows’ director explains how he created the immersive, presence-evoking horror film

[This post isn’t a news item, but after watching and appreciating the unusual, well-regarded 2014 horror film It Follows recently and reading up on interpretations of the many ambiguous and subtle aspects of the film, I found the explanation from Yahoo! Entertainment below by the film’s director of how the film was designed to be immersive and evoke spatial (and I’d argue social) presence. Though it’s not mentioned here, I also noticed several examples in which relatable sensory experiences are emphasized to evoke presence as perceptual realism, for example dabbling one’s toes in water, applying lipstick, holding hands, walking on various surfaces, etc. The original version of the Yahoo! story includes four different images and the film’s trailer (also available via YouTube) and for much more analysis of the film see stories in Looper, Grunge and a three-part deep dive in Montages Magazine.… read more. “‘It Follows’ director explains how he created the immersive, presence-evoking horror film”

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Call: Web3D 2022 – 27th International Conference on 3D Web Technology

Call for Papers

Web3D 2022 – The 27th International Conference on 3D Web Technology
November 2-4, 2022
In a hybrid format (in-person and online) Telecom SudParis, in Evry-Courcouronnes, Paris, France
https://web3d.siggraph.org/cfp/

Submission deadline: July 30, 2022 (extended)

Search engines trends show that the world, at large, discovered the concept of metaverse in October 2021. Since then, more and more people and organizations use the term as a buzzword, connecting it with various types of innovative products and services. Still, what is commonly agreed in many of these communications is the reference to 3D representation of content and to the online nature of exchanges.

The 27th International Conference on 3D Web Technology (Web3D 2022) sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH, in-Cooperation with the Web3D Consortium, hosted by Institut Mines-Telecom, will address an extensive range of research, development, and practices related to several 3D application domains including the metaverse.… read more. “Call: Web3D 2022 – 27th International Conference on 3D Web Technology”

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Using VR simulations from caregiver perspective to build empathy and train for end-of-life situations

[Presence via virtual reality has been used to increase the empathy of health care professionals for patients who are at the end of their lives by simulating the patient’s experience (e.g., see a 2018 WBUR story that includes a 3:31 minute video of a simulation by Embodied Labs). But a collaborative teaching project at Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia is providing students with the caregiver’s perspective to help them develop empathy and learn how to navigate these difficult experiences by practicing, and then discussing and refining, their interactions with these patients. The story below from the University’s Jagwire describes the effort; the original story includes a 2:17 minute tour of the simulation facilities and WRDW in Augusta has a two minute news report on the collaboration. –Matthew]

New collaboration teaches empathy via virtual reality

By Kevin Faigle
July 20, 2022

One of the toughest parts of working in the medical field is supporting a family in an end-of-life situation.… read more. “Using VR simulations from caregiver perspective to build empathy and train for end-of-life situations”

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