Conference Committee:

Program Chair:
Feng Zhu (King’s College London)
feng.zhu@kcl.ac.uk

Conference Chairs:
Alina Latypova (St Petersburg State University)
latypova.al@gmail.com
Konstantin Ocheretyany (St Petersburg State University)
kocheretyany@gmail.com

We invite submissions to the 13th International Conference on the Philosophy of Computer Games, organised by the Game Philosophy Network, together with the Centre for Media Philosophy and Laboratory for Computer Games Research, in St Petersburg, Russia, on October 21–24, 2019.

The theme of this year’s conference is ‘The Aesthetics of Computer Games’. Playing games yields particular kinds of playful experiences or perceptions through the senses, which can be studied with an aesthetic focus, emphasising aĂ­sthēsis over noĂȘsis. Computer games can be regarded as playful media that organise our perceptions and modify our sensibilities. For this conference, we welcome submissions on (but not limited to) the following themes and questions:

1. Aesthetics as aesthesis (aísthēsis). Is there an aesthetics or mode of experience that is specific to computer games? How do their visual, audio, and haptic aspects come together to produce distinctive experiences? How are ‘experience’ and ‘perception’ explored in computer games and shaped by them? Can concepts such as ‘affect’, ‘atmosphere’, and ‘rhythm’ be productively applied to computer games? What is the role of game interfaces on player experience?

2. Games as art? What are the conditions of possibility of games being art? How do computer games fit into established categories or conventions of aesthetics, and how do they contribute to new ones? Do games recognised as having a claim to artistic status differ from mainstream games? How do accounts of art based on necessary and sufficient conditions match up against anti-essentialist accounts in terms of gauging the status of computer games?

3. The aesthetics of gaming practices. Are games collaboratively authored? How do different kinds of play, or player-game conjunctions, bring about different kinds of gaming pleasures or aesthetic experiences? How do different bodies encounter computer games and what can be said about the way in which gameplay experience is mediated by our bodies? Do some kinds of gameplay or extra-gamic player practices have an aesthetic orientation? Are computer games performances?

4. The ethical, political, and social dimensions of game aesthetics. What is the transformative potential of computer games and how does this compare to the transformative capabilities ascribed to artworks? How do aesthetic issues interconnect with ethical, social, and political ones – what is the autonomy or heteronomy of the aesthetic domain? How are taste, sensibility, and habit acquired with respect to gameplay and what are the social implications of this?

In addition to this central theme, the conference also features an open category, for which we invite welcome contributions that do not fit this year’s theme, but that nonetheless offer a valuable contribution to the philosophy of computer games.

Submitted proposals should have a clear focus on philosophy and philosophical (including media philosophical) issues in relation to computer games. They should also refer to specific games rather than invoke them in more general terms. Submissions should be made in the form of extended abstracts of up to 1000 words (excluding bibliography). Please indicate if you intend your paper to fit in the open category. The deadline for submissions is 23:59 GMT, Sunday, 11th August, 2019. Please submit your abstract through review.gamephilosophy.org. All submitted abstracts will be subject to a double-blind peer review process.

Notification of accepted submissions will be sent out in late August 2019. A full paper draft must then be submitted by Monday, 14th October 2019 and will be made available on the conference website.

We also invite proposals for themed panels and workshops that will take place on the 20th and 24th October, 2019. Please contact the program committee chair if you are interested in organising one.

We cannot provide grants or subsidies for participants. There will, however, be no conference fee.

For more information about the conference please visit http://gameconference.mediaphilosophy.ru/pcg2019.html and gamephilosophy.org.

Visa information

Please note that you may need to obtain a visa to enter Russia.

If you need a visa you should apply for it at the Russian consulate in your country or at the visa service (the most popular is VisaGlobal). All visa services have an additional fee.
St. Petersburg State University provides attendees with an invitation letter, which helps to obtain the humanitarian visa. Normally the costs of the humanitarian visa is less than the tourist or business one (for German and Polish citizens, for instance, the humanitarian visa is free if they apply for it in the consulate).

The cost of visas varies from country to country. Here is a list of some countries.

All the information concerning the visa costs and the processing time (normally it takes from 4 to 20 days, depending on the country) is available here: https://www.vfsglobal.com. If you have any questions concerning visas, do not hesitate to contact Alina Latypova (latypova.al@gmail.com).

Attendees from the following countries do not need to obtain a Russian visa:

Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine.
Citizens of the countries of the CIS (the Commonwealth of Independent States) are permitted to stay in the Russian Federation for up to 90 days without a visa.

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Israel, Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela.
Citizens of these countries are allowed to stay in the Russian Federation without a visa for up to 90 days in each 180-day period, provided they will not be involved in any commercial or work-related activities during their stay.

Cuba, Montenegro, Serbia (with biometric passport), Thailand, Hong Kong SAR (up to 14 days), Macao SAR.
Citizens of the countries in this group can stay in the Russian Federation for up to 30 days without a visa. They are not entitled to work while in Russia.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia.
Citizens of these Balkan countries can also stay in Russia without a visa for up to 30 days, but must also show tourist documents (tourist confirmation and tourist voucher) or an official invitation to immigration officials.

ÌÇĐÄÊÓÆ”

The Centre for Media Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, St. Petersburg State University, in collaboration with the Game Philosophy Network, have come together to organize a double conference on philosophical issues raised by computer games.

The 13th International Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, “The Aesthetics of Computer Games” (Oct 21-24), will explore various philosophical issues in thinking about the aesthetics of games and gameplay, whilst “Computer Games as Interfaces to Media Reality” (Oct 21-25) will address issues that spring from considering computer games to be “experience machines” for the modification of sensibility, thought, and imagination. Our aim is to provide a meeting place for scholars of media philosophy and game philosophy in order to inspire future investigations into the commonalities and differences between these approaches.

Conference Committee (full)

Program Committee:

Alina Latypova (St Petersburg State University)
Anita Leirfall (University of Bergen)
Darshana Jayemanne (Abertay University)
Feng Zhu (King’s College London)(chair)
Grant Tavinor (Lincoln University)
Hans-Joachim Backe (IT University of Copenhagen)
John Richard Sageng (Game Philosophy Network)
Konstantin Ocheretyany (St Petersburg State University)
Marc Bonner (University of Cologne)
Margarita Skomorokh (St Petersburg State University)
Mathias Fuchs (Leuphana University of LĂŒneburg)
Olli Leino (City University of Hong Kong)
Pawel Grabarczyk (IT University of Copenhagen)
Sebastian Möring (University of Potsdam)
Sonia Fizek (Media Academy Stuttgart)
Veli-Matti Karhulahti (University of JyvÀskylÀ/University of Turku)
William Huber (Abertay University)

Organizing Committee:
Alexander Lenkevich (St Petersburg State University)
Alina Latypova (St Petersburg State University)(chair)
Konstantin Ocheretyany (St Petersburg State University)(chair)
Margarita Skomorokh (St Petersburg State University)

For additional queries, do not hesitate to email the organisers using the following email address: feng (dot) zhu (at) kcl (dot) ac (dot) uk

Warm regards,

Feng Zhu

Teaching Fellow in Digital Media and Culture
Department of Digital Humanities
King’s College London
Room C0.07, Chesham Building
London, WC2R 2LS

This year’s conference is devoted to the philosophical exploration of how meaning phenomena contribute to the nature as well as the socio-cultural role of computer games.

Accepted contributions will deal with philosophical approaches to the various mechanisms and structures of meaning production that characterize computer games and game play practices. Ideally contributions address one or more of the perspectives indicated below.

Besides this central theme, the conference also features an open category for which we explicitly invite submissions that do not fit the conference topic but which are in any case clearly valuable contributions to the philosophy of computer games.

Regarding the central topic “meaning and computer games” we aim to emphasise the following four perspectives:

1. Computer games as carriers of representational meanings: How do games convey meaning? Which interpretation methods are most feasible for understanding computer games? Which theories, concepts, and models of meaning-making (e.g. semantics, semiotics, hermeneutics, rhetoric, logic) may apply in the case of computer games in general, or in individual games? How do computer games challenge standing theories of meaning?

2. Meaning production in game play: Is there a unique kind of meaning that applies specifically to the activity of game play? How does such meaning differ from semantic, semiotic, hermeneutic and logic-based conceptions of meaning? What characterises meaningful activities in games? How should we characterize the player’s interpretations of the activity of game play? How can the experience of meaning arise in computer game play?

3. Value and computer games: How do specific forms of meaning-production in computer games and game play contribute to their wider existential, social and cultural value? What is the meaning of in-game values in computer games, how do they relate to general values?

4. Designing for meaning in games: Which philosophies help us theorise the concept and practices of meaningful game design? How can philosophical approaches to meaning contribute to enriching game design in general?

Contributions will have a clear focus on philosophy and philosophical issues in relation to computer games. They will refer to specific examples of computer games rather than merely invoke them in more general terms.

Abstracts should have a maximum of 1000 words excluding bibliography. Please indicate if you intend your paper to fit in the “open” category. The deadline for submissions is Midnight GMT, 1 July, 2015. Please submit your abstract through review.gamephilosophy.org. All submitted abstracts will be subject to double blind peer review.

Notification of accepted submissions will be sent out by 15 August 2015. A full paper draft must then be submitted by 28 September 2015 and will be made available on the conference website.

We also invite proposals for thematic panels/workshops on October 14th. Please contact the programme committee chair if you are interested in organising one.

For information about the conference please visit 2015.gamephilosophy.org and gamephilosophy.org.