International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Call: 2027 Mid-Atlantic Alt.Ctrl Symposium

    Published:

    Call for Submissions: 2027 Mid-Atlantic Alt.Ctrl Symposium (MAACS 2027)January 5, 2027National Harbor, Maryland, USAhttps://maacs.net/call-for-participation/ Deadline for submission of extended abstracts: September 4, 2026 The 2027 Mid-Atlantic Alt.Ctrl Symposium (MAACS 2027) seeks abstract submissions for the inaugural MAACS event to be held on January 5, 2027 in National Harbor, MD, USA. This event will be a meeting place for designers, developers, artists, and researchers working with alternative game controllers and playful installations to meet and share practices, findings, and discussions relevant to their work. We welcome contributions from individuals and groups from all backgrounds and all related disciplines. — MAACS is…

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  • AI “actress” Tilly Norwood to lead new movie

    Published:

    [The news that AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood will star in a feature film (as an AI-generated character) is receiving wide coverage in the press, including this report from Variety. Following that below I’ve added presence-related excerpts from a few stories in other publications, and from a recent interview with the Tilly Norwood in the New York Times Magazine (the interviewer gives an insightful assessment of why the actress evokes her medium-as-social-actor presence). –Matthew] Tilly Norwood to Lead New Movie ‘Misaligned,’ Marking Feature Debut for AI ‘Actor’ By Alex RitmanJuly 6, 2026 Tilly Norwood, the AI “actor” who sparked a frenzy…

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  • Call: Ethics of AI special issue

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Special Issue on the Ethics of Artificial IntelligenceFor the Journal Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe)https://reference-global.com/journal/EBCE?tab=announcements#journal-tabs Deadline for submission of abstracts: September 30, 2026 We are pleased to announce a special issue of Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe) dedicated to the ethical, philosophical, social, and political implications of artificial intelligence (AI), scheduled for publication in June 2027. Artificial intelligence has rapidly become one of the most transformative technologies of the twenty-first century. AI systems increasingly shape decision-making processes in healthcare, education, governance, employment, communication, security, science, and everyday social interaction. At the same time, the development…

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  • Noro’s next gen telepresence tech

    Published:

    [High-end technologies designed to evoke spatial and social presence have come a long way in the last few decades, as can be seen in this story from AV Magazine about the latest products from the company Noro. See the original version of the story for two more pictures, follow the links at the end for videos of the latest tech, and for more details visit the Noro website. –Matthew] Is Tommaso Trionfi taking the next turn in telepresence? The CEO of Noro and his team are combining an LED wall with an embedded central camera, companion touchscreen, collaboration tools and…

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  • Call: 2026 Imagining Creative Worlds Online Symposium

    Published:

    Call for Papers: 2026 Imagining Creative WorldsOnline symposium in the Common Ground Imagining Futures SeriesNovember 11-12, 2026https://artsinsociety.com/online-symposium/2026-call-for-papers Deadline for submissions of proposals: October 11, 2026Deadline for applications for Emerging Scholars Award: August 11, 2026 We invite proposals for 2026 Imagining Creative Worlds, an annual online symposium in the Common Ground Imagining Futures Series,, taking place 11–12 November 2026. The symposium brings together scholars, researchers, artists, designers, educators, publishers, museum professionals, media makers, and cultural practitioners working across creative fields and practices. We welcome proposals that explore how creative worlds are made, shared, interpreted, circulated, and transformed.…

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  • Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA) begins improving VR research

    Published:

    [The ambitious Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA) project was created to advance human-subjects research on extended reality; in this news release via the University of Central Florida, VERA announces two new milestones toward that goal. See the original version for three more images, and a May 2023 ISPR Presence News post for more context. There’s much more information on the VERA website. –Matthew] UCF-Led VERA Project Reaches 2 Major Milestones for VR Research The Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA), a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded platform designed to advance the pace and scope of immersive research, has launched its first large-scale…

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  • Call: AI and Psychology of Spirituality in an Ever-changing World

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Artificial Intelligence and Psychology of Spirituality in an Ever-changing World: Challenges and OpportunitiesSpecial issue of the Springer journal Pastoral Psychologyhttps://link.springer.com/collections/gehdiffffa Deadline for submissions: Ongoing We all are living in a polarized, chaotic, and ever-changing world and people value the pursuit of wealth, dominance, and power in uncertain, unpredictable, and unstable situations. Spirituality plays a vital role for living with the impermanence and adversities of life and sustains our eudaimonic well-being. In Pargament’s spirituality-centred model (1999), spirituality has a unique focus on the domain of the sacred, which can give value and meaning to existence. Furthermore, spiritual exercises…

    Read more: Call: AI and Psychology of Spirituality in an Ever-changing World

  • Charter school buys humanoid robots to help students learn

    Published:

    [In what is apparently a world first, a charter school in San Diego, California has purchased two AI-powered humanoid robots to interact with students. It’s “part of a pilot program meant to help [the educators] figure out what role AI – and potentially robots – may play in the future of education.” Of course there are some serious concerns about the effort, including the priorities represented by the high cost of the robots and fears about the possibility of technology being used to replace human teachers. This report from Voice of San Diego describes the early days of the program…

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  • Call: avataResponsibility 2026

    Published:

    Call for Abstracts: avataResponsibility 2026Virtues without borders: humans, avatars and collective agentsOctober 8-9, 2026Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Romaniahttps://avataresponsibility.ccea.ro/virtues-without-borders-humans-avatars-and-collective-agents/ Deadline for submission of abstracts and bio statements: July 27, 2026 Alongside the growing complexity of collective agents such as organizations, groundbreaking developments in AI and robotics are reshaping our moral landscape in profound and unprecedented ways. With LLM-powered avatars, AI companions, and hybrid human-AI assemblages taking the scene, we are witnessing radical challenges to longstanding assumptions about the nature of agency, virtue and moral character. Can virtues such as honesty, practical wisdom, or care be attributed to artificial or…

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  • AI agents are not your “coworkers”

    Published:

    [AI companies and many organizations label and refer to AI agents not as technological tools but as “digital humans,” “employees,” or “coworkers.” As described in this story from MIT Technology Review, researchers from Boston University have found that encouraging what might be considered role-based medium-as-social-actor presence in this way leads to negative outcomes by implying that the AI has skills and responsibilities equivalent to those of humans. As the researchers write, “AI employees appear to occupy a hybrid organizational position: treated as delegated producers rather than tools, but not monitored like human subordinates.” –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Photo Illustration by Sarah…

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  • Call: Museums and Video Games. Collection, Interaction, and Playable Heritage

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Museums and Video Games. Collection, Interaction, and Playable HeritageAn issue of the journal Carte SemiotichePosted on GAMESNETWORK e-list on June 30, 2026 Edited by Matteo Bittanti and Elisabetta Modena Deadline for submission of abstracts: August 31, 2026 In 2011, artist and game designer Pippin Barr created The Artist Is Present, a video game based on Marina Abramović’s performance of the same name, originally staged in 2010 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of a retrospective dedicated to the artist. Described by its creator as a lo-fi recreation of the performance, the game…

    Read more: Call: Museums and Video Games. Collection, Interaction, and Playable Heritage

  • How Realms of Flow explores a different side of VR

    Published:

    [This interesting story from UploadVR describes the trajectory of work by creator Marc Zimmermann, who has designed a series of presence-evoking virtual reality experiences that emphasize “mood, movement, sound, and emotional immersion rather than traditional gameplay.” To better understand what these experiences are like, see the original version of the story for six more images and two videos (and of course follow the links and try some of the experiences yourself). –Matthew] How Realms Of Flow Explores A Different Side Of VR By Craig StormJune 4, 2026 Some of the VR experiences that have stayed with me the longest haven’t…

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