Call for Abstracts
The State of the Avatar: A DiGRA 2022 Workshop
July 7, 2022 (the day before the main DiGRA conference)
Kraków, Poland
Workshop: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bo0UP20wuF_7jV-wYTWrh15lBH2zusjV/view
DiGRA 2022: http://www.digra2022.org/
Submission deadline: March 31st, 2022
“Avatar theory,” or the study of avatars and related phenomena (player figures, playable characters, player-controlled components, etc.) is continuously expanded as scholars dive deeper into the configurations of interaction with and within digital games and the worlds they project. The topic has been approached from a variety of perspectives, ranging from theoretical investigations rooted in phenomenology (Klevjer, 2007; Vella, 2015; Kania, 2017) and game design (Jørgensen, 2013; Willumsen, 2018) to theatre and puppetry (Blanchet, 2008; Westecott, 2009; Georges, 2012) and player engagement (Linderoth, 2005; Bayliss, 2007; Lankoski, 2011), to name a few. Research from psychological and social-scientific angles (Waggoner 2009; Ducheneaut et al 2009; Yee 2014) has also considered the significance of avatarial engagement on personal and social identities. At the same time, the term has been criticized for being a cultural appropriation of a Hindu object of worship (de Wilt et al., 2019), and the expansive nature of the avatar, as indicated by the great diversity in theories, suggest that it might be time to organize existing theories to be able to compare and discuss whether and how the term can be productively used in future studies of digital games.
Thus, the workshop will bring together different researchers interested in exploring the avatar and related concepts, to examine, compare, and debate the uses and applications of the different approaches and how the community of scholars studying games may best handle the present challenges to avatar theory.
The aim of the workshop is to represent the diverse array of approaches to studying and theorizing avatars. The themes explored in the workshop could include, but are not limited to:
- Historical overview of the “avatar” term and concept
- Player discourses on avatars
- Avatars in game design
- Embodiment, presence, and telepresence
- Representation and diversity of avatars
- Avatars and diversity, e.g. gender, and sexuality, ethnicity, ableism
- Avatars and personal and social identity
- Avatars beyond games
- Formal analysis of avatars
- Avatars and characters
- Empathic and emotional engagement with avatars
- Movement and navigation in digital games
- Research methods and challenges in studying avatars
FORMAT
The workshop will run on July 7, 2022 (the day before the main DiGRA conference programme). Speakers will be asked to prepare 15-minute presentations. These presentations will be grouped into thematic panels, each of which will be followed by a short discussion involving the panelists and the audience. After the panels, time will be dedicated to a moderated final discussion and Q&A session involving all speakers and the audience.
OUTCOMES
We aim for the workshop to lead to a collected publication, either in the form of an edited volume or a special journal issue. Discussions will be held with workshop participants to identify the preferred mode of publication.
HOW TO SUBMIT
Please submit an abstract of up to 400 words (plus bibliography) to (daniel.m.vella@um.edu.mt) AND eawi@dr.dk) by March 31st 2022. Selections will be made by the organizers.
Given the exploratory nature of this workshop, work-in-progress submissions are welcome.
All workshop presenters have to be registered for the main DiGRA 2022 conference. However, it is not necessary for workshop presenters to have papers accepted in the main conference programme. The workshop sessions are open to all DiGRA 2022 participants (non-presenters included).
Before you submit: If you are not familiar with DiGRA, please check the website for conference fees, location, etc. ahead of submitting an abstract: http://www.digra2022.org/
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline: March 31st, 2022, 12.00 (GMT)
Notifications: April 7th, 2022 (at the latest)
Workshop: July 7th, 2022, Kraków, Poland.
ORGANIZERS
Dr. Ea Christina Willumsen is an audience researcher at DR – Danish Broadcasting Corporation. She utilizes mixed methods to understand user needs and behaviors related to media, including digital games and other media in virtual environments. Ea holds a Ph.D. in Media Aesthetics from the University of Bergen, Norway. Her dissertation explores the relationship between virtual environments and the objects controlled by players in digital games, based on the analysis of 99 different games.
Dr. Daniel Vella is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Digital Games at the University of Malta. He pursued his doctoral studies at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His research covers fields including the phenomenology of player experience, aesthetic theory and digital games, subjectivity, identity and being in virtual worlds, narrativity and fictionality in games, and the philosophy and poetics of space and place in games. His work has been published in a number of international journals and edited volumes, and he is the co-author of Virtual Existentialism: Meaning and Subjectivity in Virtual Worlds (Palgrave, 2020). He is also active as a writer and narrative designer for board games, most notably on Posthuman Saga (Mighty Boards, 2019).
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