International Society
for Presence Research

Month: May 2026

  • Call: AI-Mediated Communication: Emotion, Interaction, and Public Meaning

    Published:

    [Note that this journal requires a publication fee, which may be payable by your institution. For more information see the last section below. For general information about publication fees, see AJE Scholar’s “Understanding Submission and Publication Fees” and Wikipedia’s entry on Article Processing Charges. –Matthew] Call for Papers: AI-Mediated Communication: Emotion, Interaction, and Public MeaningA thematic issue of the journal Media and Communicationhttps://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/issue/futureissues#i577 Editor: Don Shin (Texas Tech University) Important dates: Deadline for submission of abstracts: June 1-15, 2026 Submission of full papers: October 15-30, 2026 Publication of the Issue: January/June 2027 ABOUT THE ISSUE This thematic issue examines how…

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  • Viral stunt demonstrates power of AI and (inverse) presence

    Published:

    [As the effectiveness of generative artificial intelligence increases, a viral stunt demonstrates the power of labels and expectations to shape perception and evoke not just presence but inverse presence. This story is from DesignTAXI, where the original version includes many embedded social media posts that illustrate the misperception. For more details and post excerpts, see coverage in Fortune, PetaPixel and the Stable Diffusion subreddit. –Matthew] Real Monet got mistaken as AI copy, and everyone kept ripping it apart May 20, 2026 More than a century after Claude Monet painted Water Lilies, an image of the work managed to fool millions…

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  • Call: Lockdown and its (Digital) Afterlives

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Lockdown and its (Digital) AfterlivesMedia, Infrastructure, and Everyday Life in Regenerative PerspectiveA preconference of AoIR 2026, the annual conference of the Association of Internet ResearchersOctober 13, 2026Hyatt Regency HotelMexico City, Mexico[From a May 19, 2026 post by Eszter Zimanyi on the AoIR mailing list] Deadline for submission of abstracts: July 15, 2026 In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic instantiated waves of lockdowns of varying severity across the globe. As nations struggled to reach consensus over how to best contain and manage the spread of the highly contagious and deadly disease, tech entrepreneurs and platform companies positioned their digital…

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  • Extending remote work to the factory floor through telepresence

    Published:

    [The expert author of this essay from Robotics & Automation News makes a strong argument for, and predictions about, the increased use of telepresence in a wide variety of remote work settings. –Matthew] Expert opinion: Extending remote work to the factory floor through telepresence By David EdwardsGuest author: Yonas Teodros Tefera, research team lead of the Vicarios Lab in the Department of Advanced Robotics at the Italian Institute of TechnologyMay 13, 2026 Remote work has largely been defined by office jobs. Video calls, shared documents, and digital collaboration tools have allowed knowledge workers to operate from almost anywhere.…

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  • Call: Hypermedia Warfare and Techno-Legal Entanglements

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Hypermedia Warfare and Techno-Legal Entanglements: Media, Technology, and Legal Perspectives on Contemporary Conflict Zones (Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan)July 10, 2026, 9:30–18:00Audit Room, King’s CollegeCambridge Digital HumanitiesUniversity of CambridgeCambridge, UKhttps://www.cdh.cam.ac.uk/events/41366/ Deadline for submission of abstracts: May 30, 2026 (extended) Convenors: Ryan Heuser, Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities, Cambridge Digital Humanities Wesam Amer, CDH Affiliate and Visiting Professor, University of Cambridge Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan, Professor of Law, University of Cambridge DESCRIPTION The last years have witnessed intense and overlapping global conflicts, in particular in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan – each with distinct geopolitical contexts but shared patterns in the intersection…

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  • New Ukrainian VR simulator recreates Russian FPV drone threats

    Published:

    [As the weapons used in war advance, so do those used for training soldiers- in this case both the weapons and training are based on presence experiences. Ukraine’s United24 Media reports on new virtual reality training to prepare soldiers to counter the threat of Russian FPV (first-person view) drones, and to pilot their own drones. See the original story for a 0:38 minute video (also available on YouTube). –Matthew] [Image: A stillframe from SKIFTECH’s “Minus Drone” VR simulator, designed to train Ukrainian soldiers to shoot down FPV drones. Credit: SKIFTECH] New Ukrainian VR Simulator Recreates Russian FPV Drone Threats By…

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  • Call: Scary Levels: Designing Fear in Games and Interactive Media

    Published:

    Call for Book Chapters: Scary Levels: Designing Fear in Games and Interactive Mediahttp://commlist.org/archive/all/2026-all/msg00722.html Editor: Zlatko Bukač (Assistant Professor, Department of English Studies, University of Zadar, Croatia) Deadline for submissions of 400-500 word proposals and short bio statements: July 1, 2026 Space and place continuously serve as sources of inspiration in video games and various other interactive media, within which they have a specific way of representing and operationalizing fear and dread. Interactive works can turn fear into a set of narrative and game design sequences that are problems and solutions for the experience of playing and reading. For example, how…

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  • World’s first production-ready manned mecha

    Published:

    [Unitree Robotics has unveiled a real-life mecha – a giant robot controlled by an onboard pilot. Although there aren’t many details about the operation mechanism, in science fiction portrayals the pilot experience a sense of presence as in teleoperation but arguably more intense, in which the technology feels like an extension of their body. The story below from Global Times describes the new robot, and a 1:14 minute demonstration video is available on YouTube. For more about mechas, see the New York Public Library blog and Wikipedia. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Unitree Robotics] Science fiction becomes reality: Unitree Robotics unveils world’s…

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  • Call: Human-Machine Narration: Methods, Storytelling, and Generative AI

    Published:

    Call for Participation: Human-Machine Narration (HMN) Seminar: Methods, Storytelling, and Generative AIOctober 6-9, 2026Aarhus University’s Sandbjerg EstateSouthern Denmarkhttps://necs.org/news/events/hmn-seminar-methods-storytelling-and-generative-ai Deadline for submission of abstracts: June 15, 2026 The aim of this interdisciplinary scholarly retreat is to bring together researchers from all fields working with the intersection of AI and storytelling to reflect on and discuss how we study narratives that are no longer authored, circulated, or experienced exclusively by humans. New practices of storytelling are emerging and existing ones are transformed with the popular uptake of LLM-based chatbots across professional, public, and recreational settings. Today, LLM-infused storytelling impacts all forms of…

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  • Famous skeptic Richard Dawkins experiences MASA presence

    Published:

    [The essay below from The Conversation explains why interacting with AI chatbots leads many people, including recently even noted skeptic Richard Dawkins, to believe the chatbots are or at least could be conscious, a compelling example of medium-as-social-actor presence. The essay authors also join others in noting that this can lead to negative consequences, and they go on to suggest ways to discourage these perceptions and beliefs. For more coverage of the Dawkins claim, see a story in the Guardian (that includes this: “Dawkins isn’t the first, but might be the most eminent person yet, to be seduced into believing…

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  • Call: HCSE 2026 – 11th International Working Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering

    Published:

    Call for Papers: HCSE 202611th International Working Conference on Human-Centered Software EngineeringCo-located with the 2026 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)September 29 – October 2, 2026Paderborn, GermanyHCSE 2026: http://www.hcse-conference.orgVL/HCC: https://conf.researchr.org/home/vlhcc-2026 Deadlines for submissions:Technical Full Papers and Late Breaking Results: May 22, 2026 (extended)Demos, Posters, and Discussion Forum: July 3, 2026 HCSE is a bi-annual, single-track, working conference organized by the IFIP Working Group 13.2 on Methodology for User-Centred System Design. We aim at bringing together researchers and practitioners interested in strengthening the scientific foundations of interactive system and user interface design, examining the relationship between software engineering,…

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  • Scent marketing trend: Scent and sound immersive experiences

    Published:

    [Here’s an abridged version of an interesting story from Beauty Matter about the evolution of immersive experiences designed with the combination of scent and sound, most recently for the use of marketing fragrances and fragrance brands. See the original version of the story for more details and examples, along with four more images. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Jill Steinberg] Scent and Sound: The New Frontier of Immersive Experiences By Carla SeippMay 5, 2026 Scent and sound have always had a close kinship. They share a vocabulary, like top notes, base notes, and accords, but they also share a neurological component. The…

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