International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Call: “Dancing (with technology)” issue of Intermediality

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Dancing (with technology)For the Fall 2026 issue of Intermediality. History and Theory of the Arts, Literature, and Technologieshttp://intermedialites.com/en/call-for-papers-no-48-dancing-with-technology-danser-avec-la-technologie/ Guest Editors:Hilary Bergen, The New SchoolPhilippe Bédard, Independent Scholar Important Dates:Deadline to submit proposals: June 7, 2025Announcement of selected proposals: June 30, 2025Submission of completed texts for peer review: December 1st, 2025Publication of accepted texts: Fall 2026 Isadora Duncan⎯fin de siècle pioneer of modern dance—believed that only the movement of the “naked” (unshod, unmediated) human body could be considered natural and therefore hold value. Duncan was fixated on stripping dance to its core instrument—the singular human form (Daly 1994).…

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  • We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent – here’s how

    Published:

    [This forceful essay in The Conversation by a cognitive neuroscientist captures what to me is most fascinating and potentially dangerous about rapidly evolving artificial intelligence technology: its ability to mimic human cognition and social cues that evoke compelling medium-as-social-actor presence illusions. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Kundra/Shutterstock] We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent – here’s how By Guillaume Thierry, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Bangor UniversityApril 14, 2025 We are constantly fed a version of AI that looks, sounds and acts suspiciously like us. It speaks in polished sentences, mimics emotions, expresses curiosity, claims to feel compassion, even dabbles in what…

    Read more: We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent – here’s how

  • Call: Sixth International Workshop on Adapted intEraction with SociAl Robots (cAESAR) at ACM UMAP 2025

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Sixth International Workshop on Adapted intEraction with SociAl Robots (cAESAR)In conjunction with ACM UMAP 2025June 16-19, 2025New York, NY, USAcEASAR Workshop: https://caesar2025.di.unito.it/UMAP 2025: https://www.um.org/umap2024/ Deadline for submission of papers: April 18, 2025 (Flexible) This Workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners who are working on various aspects of social robotics and adaptive interaction. The expected result of the workshop is a multidisciplinary research agenda that will inform future research directions and, hopefully, forge some research collaborations. TOPICS Topics (of interest) include (but are not limited to): Personalized Human Robot Interaction (HRI) User modeling and user profiling…

    Read more: Call: Sixth International Workshop on Adapted intEraction with SociAl Robots (cAESAR) at ACM UMAP 2025

  • Chinese women finding heartthrobs in 3-D otome games: Is it a worrying trend?

    Published:

    [This story from SHINE (the digital arm of Shanghai Daily) examines a presence phenomenon in which women in China develop emotional attachments to virtual characters and in some cases even bring the parasocial relationship into real life via cosplayers. See the original version for six more images. –Matthew] Why so many women find heartthrobs in virtual reality. Is it a worrying trend? By Lu FeiranApril 14, 2025 Yunnan Province resident Xiao Cheng, disillusioned with male relationships, has a boyfriend. She spends an hour with him after work every day but never holds his hand. His name is Caleb Xia. He’s…

    Read more: Chinese women finding heartthrobs in 3-D otome games: Is it a worrying trend?

  • Call: Audiovisual Essays for Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts

    Published:

    [NOTE: See the website for previous calls that reference topics such as AI and “immersive and interactive technologies.” –Matthew] Call for Audiovisual Essays: Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts (SCOPUS-indexed)https://revistas.ucp.pt/index.php/jsta/callforpapers Open Call (always open)No payment from the authors will be requiredJSTA aims to create a conceptual discussion around the audiovisual essay, not only as a creative process but also as a pedagogical and academic tool, to generate concepts and criteria for evaluation and scientific consideration. (Please see a version of our first audiovisual essay here).  Therefore, JSTA is open to submissions of original audiovisual essays made with films, excerpts…

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  • Researchers from Japan pioneer a technology that uses real-world doors to connect the real and virtual worlds

    Published:

    [A team of researchers in Japan are using the combination of real (nonmediated) doors and virtual ones to create more “natural and intuitive” transitions less likely to disrupt presence for users of mixed reality technologies. Some of the details are reported in the news release below from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology via EurekAlert! (it’s also available via Tech Xplore). –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Daiki Hagimori from NTT DOCOMO, Inc., Japan] Transforming doors into gateways to the virtual world: The future of mixed reality! Researchers from Japan pioneer a technology that uses real-world doors to connect the real and…

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  • Call: “Digital Intimacies, Young People and Everyday Life” International Conference

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Digital Intimacies, Young People and Everyday LifeInternational ConferenceSeptember 25-26, 2025University of Padova, Italyhttps://digitalintimacies.eu/conference Deadline for submission of abstracts: April 27, 2025 The digital space is gradually contributing to shaping the concept of intimacy, transforming what was once considered the exclusive domain of the private sphere into a continuous flow of data, desires, and connections. From social media to dating apps, from digital tools for self-expression to algorithmic imaginaries, intimate relationships are constantly redefined in the digital environment in increasingly complex and multifaceted ways. For young people, digital media has become an essential part of their everyday lives,…

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  • I tested the AI that calls your elderly parents if you can’t bothered

    Published:

    [While it may provide important benefits, especially given age-related demographic trends, the prospect of utilizing presence-evoking technologies to supplement or even replace human beings who provide health care to the elderly raises concerns about dystopian outcomes. The author of the important story below from a 404 Media email newsletter reports on his test of a new service that uses audio AI to check in on and converse with elderly family members each day and then provides a report on the interaction to the service subscriber. See the original version of the story for two more images and audio recordings of…

    Read more: I tested the AI that calls your elderly parents if you can’t bothered

  • Call: 10th Anniversary of Games & Gaming mini-track at HICSS 2026

    Published:

    Call for Papers: The 10th Anniversary of Games & Gaming at HICSS! (Game Scholars and Hawaii in January!) Games & Gaming mini-track (Digital and Social Media track) at HICSS59th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)January 6-9, 2026Hyatt Regency MauiHawaiiHICSS: http://hicss.hawaii.edu/Track/mini-track: https://hicss.hawaii.edu/tracks-59/digital-and-social-media/#games-and-gaming-minitrack Deadline for submissions: June 15, 2025 For the TENTH straight year, the Games & Gaming mini-track at HICSS is seeking papers that examine the social aspects of digital gaming. We feature work related to digital games and sociality that covers a variety of methods: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods papers are welcome, ranging from interviews to big…

    Read more: Call: 10th Anniversary of Games & Gaming mini-track at HICSS 2026

  • DIY haptic controller brings touch typing to virtual reality

    Published:

    [As this story from Mixed notes, “without tactile feedback, typing in VR feels unnatural and inefficient,” but a new input device could make using one technology (a computer) within another (VR) evoke greater presence (I guess that could be called nested presence). See the original version of the story for a different image and the 1:02 minute demonstration video (also on YouTube), and see Github for more information. –Matthew] [Image: Source: GitHub] DIY haptic controller brings touch typing to Virtual Reality A creative developer has built a wearable eight-key controller that could solve one of VR’s most persistent challenges: text…

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  • Call: 17th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR 2025)

    Published:

    1st Call for Papers: 17th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR 2025)“Sound, Music: Space, Place”November 3-7, 2025University College London East Campus (UCL East)London, UKhttps://imerc.blogspot.com/2025/03/fwd-1st-call-for-papers-cmmr-2025-sound.html Deadline for submissions: May 30, 2025 The 17th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR) will be held at University College London (UCL) in East London (United Kingdom), 3 – 7 November 2025. CMMR 2025 invites contributions related to all aspects of multidisciplinary fields and approaches, regarding sound, music and computers. In particular, we welcome submissions matching this year’s topic “Sound, Music: Space, Place”. The conference will be hosted by the world-leading departments of Anthropology (within the…

    Read more: Call: 17th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR 2025)

  • “Echo of the Abyss” uses VR (and presence) to connect players with ocean ecosystems

    Published:

    [The story below from Carnegie-Mellon University’s Center for Transformational Play describes a doctoral student’s creative and research work in a project that uses a presence-evoking virtual reality experience to help people feel connected to the deepest parts of the ocean; see the original version of the story for three different images and a video trailer. –Matthew] [Image: Screenshot from “Echo of the Abyss” trailer] Using Virtual Reality to Connect Players With Ocean Ecosystems By: Maila Jill RibleApril 2, 2025 Fewer people have been to the deepest parts of the ocean than have walked on the surface of the moon. Researchers…

    Read more: “Echo of the Abyss” uses VR (and presence) to connect players with ocean ecosystems

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