International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Call: Resonant Worlds: Sound, Matter, and Environmental Design in Games

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Resonant Worlds: Sound, Matter, and Environmental Design in GamesEdited CollectionEdited by Michael Austin and Kate Galloway[From the Gamesnetwork mailing list] Deadline for submission of abstracts: August 15, 2026 Resonant Worlds: Sound, Matter, and Environmental Design in Games  is an edited collection that examines how video games render environments through sound, with particular attention to the sonic expression of materiality. While game studies has long emphasized visual worldbuilding and environmental storytelling, this volume foregrounds how sound communicates the textures, behaviors, and affordances of virtual matter, including water, ice, stone, wind, vegetation, and more, as dynamic, interactive systems.…

    Read more: Call: Resonant Worlds: Sound, Matter, and Environmental Design in Games

  • Study: After VR training, the brain began treating virtual wings more like real limbs

    Published:

    [The results of a new study reported in Science News won’t be surprising to those familiar with previous work on homuncular flexibility in virtual reality (e.g., by Andrea Stevenson Won et al.), but the results are intriguing and have important implications. See the original version of the story below for a nine second video (also on YouTube) and follow the link to the new article in Cell Reports for more details. –Matthew] 25 people learned to fly with virtual wings. Here’s how the brain changed After flight training, the brain began treating wings more like real limbs By Yujia HuangMay…

    Read more: Study: After VR training, the brain began treating virtual wings more like real limbs

  • Call: 4th Workshop on NeuroDesign in Human-Robot Interaction

    Published:

    Call for Participation: 4th Workshop on NeuroDesign in Human–Robot InteractionAt ICRA 2026, IEEE International Conference on Robotics & AutomationJune 5, 2026Hybrid Event: Vienna, Austria and onlineWorkshop: https://neurodesign-in-hri.webflow.io/ICRA 2026: https://2026.ieee-icra.org/ Deadline for submissions: May 17, 2026 (extended) Dear Colleagues, Researchers, Students, and Early-Stage Start-up Teams, We are excited to invite you to participate in the NeuroDesign in Human–Robot Interaction EXPO & Competition and Poster Paper Track, held as part of the 4th Workshop on NeuroDesign in Human–Robot Interaction at IEEE ICRA 2026. Due to popular demand and the strong interest we have received, we are pleased to announce that the submission…

    Read more: Call: 4th Workshop on NeuroDesign in Human-Robot Interaction

  • British Airways transforms NYC subway into one of its planes

    Published:

    [British Airways recently created a presence-evoking immersive experience in which it transformed a New York subway into one of its airplanes. The installation, part of a larger campaign, is described in this story from DesignTAXI – see the original version for two more images, a 2:48 minute video (also available on YouTube), and three embedded social media posts. An excerpt from the British Airways press release follows below – see the original version of the release for more images. –Matthew] British Airways transforms NYC subway into one of its planes May 1, 2026 Your daily commute rarely comes with a…

    Read more: British Airways transforms NYC subway into one of its planes

  • Call: Generative AI and Cultural Heritage Conference

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Generative AI and Cultural HeritageInternational ConferenceOctober 29-30, 2026Ferdinando Rossi School of Advanced StudiesUniversity of Turin, Italyhttp://commlist.org/archive/all/2026-all/msg00678.html Sponsored by Global Media and China (Sage Journals) Organisers:Simone Natale (University of Turin, Italy)Deqiang Ji (Communication University of China)Anthony Fung (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)Dianlin Huang (Communication University of China) Deadline for the submission of abstracts: June 30, 2026 Cultural heritage – defined as the tangible and intangible legacy that is passed down from generation to generation – has always been sensitive to technological innovation. From photography to film, from computing to the Internet, from social media to virtual reality,…

    Read more: Call: Generative AI and Cultural Heritage Conference

  • China trend of AI replicas of exes sparks debates about emotional cheating, attachment

    Published:

    [The prospect of creating AI chatbots that simulate specific human beings almost always raises interesting and important questions. The latest example, described in this story from the South China Morning Post, is an AI that simulates a person’s former romantic partner. See the original version of the story for four more images. Tech writer Mike Elgan writes about this in his Machine Society substack and concludes with this: “My beef with this concept is the same I have with any kind of relationship AI. It’s delusion-inducing for many users (who may believe the digital twin is actually a copy of…

    Read more: China trend of AI replicas of exes sparks debates about emotional cheating, attachment

  • Call: Sensing Immersion: Video passthrough, bodily technologies and sense coupling in co-extensive reality

    Published:

    Call for Participation: “Sensing Immersion: Video passthrough, bodily technologies and sense coupling in co-extensive reality”A talk by Chris Salter (Zurich University of the Arts)May 19, 2026, 16:00 – 18:00University of Siegen, Germany and onlinehttps://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/en/events/talk_-by_chris_salter_en/ Registration: https://my.liberaforms.org/talk-registration-sensing-immersion ABOUT THE TALK The introduction of worn mixed reality devices such as the Meta Quest 2 or the Apple Vision Pro marks an important shift towards re-centering virtual experience back onto the human body as a mediator between self, others and the world. Yet, as optical sensing technologies and their associated algorithms transform virtual reality headsets into camera-based sensing systems that “passthrough” the outside…

    Read more: Call: Sensing Immersion: Video passthrough, bodily technologies and sense coupling in co-extensive reality

  • London schools use VR to relieve pupils’ stress

    Published:

    [This widely cited story from The Guardian reports that schools in London are using presence-evoking virtual reality to reduce student anxiety around exams and other stressors. See the original version of the story for a second image, and the Phase Space website for more details and a 1:51 minute video (also available on Vimeo). –Matthew] [Image: A pupil using a Phase Space VR headset. Credit: Phase Space] London schools trialling VR to relieve pupils’ stress Phase Space pilot programme with NHS mental health trust used to calm anxiety around exams, ADHD and home troubles By Denis Campbell and Sinéad CampbellMay…

    Read more: London schools use VR to relieve pupils’ stress

  • Call: Space, Urban Studies, Cityscapes, and Virtual/Digital Spaces

    Published:

    [NOTE: The post of this Call in the Virtual-Reality listserv includes this from the journal’s assistant editor: “We would like to read about experience working on the topics related to virtual reality and educational technology, and believe that the perspectives and journeys of this group, through research, academia, and practice, can illustrate how theory and lived experience are intertwined, and add a unique dimension to the discourse we are trying to create through this Volume.” –Matthew] Call for Papers: Space, Urban Studies, Cityscapes, and Virtual/Digital SpacesFor the Forum section of a special volume in the journal Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary…

    Read more: Call: Space, Urban Studies, Cityscapes, and Virtual/Digital Spaces

  • Rethinking AR for children: USF study finds key design gap

    Published:

    [Motivated by the fact that children are increasingly using presence-evoking technologies in school (and elsewhere), researchers at the University of South Florida are investigating differences between how adults and children use augmented reality. The original version of this story includes five more images and this quote from USF Assistant Professor Julia Woodward: “If we are going to design for children, we need to consider all the elements. Children think about AR in terms of real-world objects and try to interact with them like physical items, with weight and force. We need to design with those expectations in mind.” –Matthew] Rethinking…

    Read more: Rethinking AR for children: USF study finds key design gap

  • Call: Re-sensitising the Image in the Postdigital Age

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Re-sensitising the Image in the Postdigital AgeInternational Film And Media Studies ConferenceNovember 26-27, 2026Centre for Cinematic Intermediality and Visual CultureSapientia Hungarian University of TransylvaniaCluj-Napoca, Romania [and online – see below]http://film.sapientia.ro/en/conferences/re-sensitising-the-image-in-the-postdigital-age Deadline for submissions: July 12, 2026 In our current postdigital condition, digital technology is so deeply embedded in everyday life that the distinction between technical and natural is becoming increasingly blurred and images have become mere byproducts of our embodied co-existence with digital media. At the same time, we see that visual forms are continuously rendered obsolete by the rapidly evolving algorithmic processes.…

    Read more: Call: Re-sensitising the Image in the Postdigital Age

  • Praising and contemplating the future of the Apple Vision Pro

    Published:

    [This opinion piece from TechRadar by a long-time expert observer praises the presence-evoking capabilities of the Apple Vision Pro spatial computing device while providing a realistic assessment of its possible future and role in the evolution of presence technologies. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future] I don’t know if Vision Pro is alive or dead, but it is still the most sophisticated, powerful, and coolest hardware Apple ever built — and we can surely thank it for the glasses that will follow Will it survive the new leadership By Lance UlanoffMay 1, 2026 Rumor has it, Apple‘s pricey Vision…

    Read more: Praising and contemplating the future of the Apple Vision Pro

ISPR Presence News

Subscribe

Search ISPR Presence News:

Categories

Archives

Recent Posts

Recent Comments