‘Gaslight’ Narratives in Virtual Landscapes: Narratological Implications of Technologically Mediated and Immersive Media
Call for Extended Abstracts
‘Gaslight’ Narratives in Virtual Landscapes:
Narratological Implications of Technologically Mediated and Immersive Media ENN6, Riga, September 15-16, 2021
The ENN6 conference addresses the fusion of new technologies with unreliable, paradoxical, or disturbing narratives, which draw readers and viewers into a story, geospatially and cognitively, by means of blurring the boundaries between real and virtual spaces or alternative ones. At the vortex of the discourse are ‘Gaslight’ structures that undermine or destroy impartiality in narrative perception, since the very ‘modus operandi’ of progressive virtual technologies, under the guise of various ‘immersive’ scenarios, significantly alters all storytelling devices. It is not only within Cinematic Virtual Reality (VR), Extended Reality (XR) or Mixed Reality (MR) but also within any narrative format blending traditional and new mediums that Gaslight Narratives occur as a set of narrative strategies that seek to destabilize the critical faculties of its audience or readers through misdirection, contradiction, and cognitive manipulation both in content and form.
Important dates
October 5th, 2021 – Extended Abstract deadline
October 15th, 2021 – Notifications to authors
December 15th, 2021 – Full paper due ( 8-12 pages (with pictures) or words 3500-6000 (without pictures)
Requirements for full-text article for ADAM Arts ENN6 Special Edition
Submission Guidelines
Extended Abstracts: (800-1000 words, excluding 5 references) describing a unique perspective, novel results or completed work on all topics connected with the study of narrative.
Full papers: (8-12 pages, excluding references) describing a unique perspective, novel results or completed work on all topics connected with the study of narrative either in texts or in the media as well as with questions of narratological methodology:
Please note that Papers must be written in English, and only electronic submissions in PDF format will be considered for review. The peer review process for ENN6 will be double blind and follow the guidelines set out by the ENN6 Steering Committee and RISEBA Scientific Board:
Authors should use their own proceedings templates for Extended Abstracts, or ENN6 Template Word for the submission of their full papers.
The ENN6 Special Edition is double-blind peer-reviewed academic scientific journal ADAMarts, dedicated to architecture, design and audiovisual media arts from the Baltic Sea region (ISSN 2256-0890) that also aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers and scholars, as well the practitioners in the domain of interest from around the world.
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The link to on-line conference
Associate Professor at Södertörn University in Sweden, a visiting researcher at the University of Amsterdam, and a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin. |
New media artist, critic, curator, and writer who created Noor: A Brain Opera, the world’s first immersive interactive brain opera in a 360 degree theater. |
Since 2016 Tobin Asher has overseen Virtual Reality creation and lab operations at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab. |
The 6th International Conference of the European Narratology Network (ENN6), Autumn, 2021 (online)
Due to to the ongoing outbreaking of Covid-19 crisis, the ENN6 Conference ‘Gaslight’ Narratives in Virtual Landscapes: Narratological Implications of Technologically Mediated and Immersive Media will be held on 15-16 September 2021.
Please send submissions via the registration form
ENN6, organized by RISEBA University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with the European Narratology Network (ENN, www.narratology.net), will addresses the fusion of new technologies with unreliable, paradoxical, or disturbing narratives, which draw readers and viewers into a story, geospatially and cognitively, by means of blurring the boundaries between real and virtual spaces or alternative ones. The ultimate aim of the conference is to extend the boundaries of narratological discourse, in both its classical and post-classical conceptions, within the framework of the technological diversification of virtual reality. In addition, the conference is open to papers on all topics connected with the study of narrative in either texts or the media as well as with questions of narratological methodology.
The best selected works will be published in a double-blind peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to architecture, design and audiovisual media arts from the Baltic Sea region, published once a year by RISEBA University's Faculty of Media and Communication and Faculty of Architecture and Design.
The topics listed below are meant as a guideline for possible contributions:
> Theory and methodology of transmedial narratology in the framework of cinematic VR
> Archaeology of immersive narrative systems
> Cognitive narratology in neurocinematics
> Expanding vectors of narratology
> Gaslighting in virtual reality
Preconference Doctoral Seminar: on 14 September 2021
In conjunction with the 6th International Conference of the European Narratology Network, a preconference doctoral seminar on virtual vectors of narratology will be held. At the end of the course, the participants will receive a diploma. Prospective participants are asked to send a 500-word description of their doctoral research together with their résumés and institutional affiliation via the registration form.
In conjunction with the 6th International Conference of the European Narratology Network, a preconference doctoral seminar on virtual vectors of narratology will be held.
Applicants for the seminar must be doctoral students during the 2021-2022 academic year. At the end of the course, the participants will receive a certificate.
The seminar will consist of an introductory lecture, delivered by the leader of the seminar, and of four working sections to which the participants will be distributed according to their particular topics. The doctoral seminar will be conducted by supervisors, who are experts on particular topics. Each student will present their topic (10-15 min), after which the supervisor’s comment on the topics, and a discussion, will follow.
The principle of the doctoral seminar Assitant professor, researcher Chris Hales will deliver “Research Questions Participatory Workshop”. The participants will make short presentations about certain aspects of the work. Chris will invoke a “Delphi Method” of anonymous research question generation using an expert panel made up the other participants. Results will be collated and in the second session of the workshop Chris will employ a ranking mechanism which will be used to reveal the most popular responses from the expert panels.
PRINCIPAL OF THE DOCTORAL SEMINAR DR. CHRIS HALES
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Chris has exhibited a variety of interactive film installations dating back to ARTEC’95 in Japan via Future Cinema at ZKM in 2003 to the Glucksman Gallery in Cork in 2019. Part of his enquiry is the use of novel or unusual interface technology including facial emotion recognition and brain-computer interfaces. Another experiment has been an interactive filmshow entitled Cause & Effect designed for large audiences in cinemas. Plenty of academic articles have been published, and empirical research was carried out in Prague to discover the forgotten secrets of the world’s first interactive film entitled Kinoautomat (1967). Educationally Chris obtained his PhD in 2006 and has held lecturing appointments at the University of West of England (Bristol), Slade School of Fine Art, Central St. Martins and SMARTlab (University College Dublin). He now teaches as a "visiting lecturer".
in numerous universities and academies and has run literally hundreds of workshops. In 2013 he was instrumental in developing and teaching a new practice-led doctorate at Liepāja University (Latvia) and in 2020 was appointed Assistant Professor at RISEBA University in Riga.
PRINCIPAL OF THE DOCTORAL SEMINAR MARIA CECILIA REYES, PHD
Research Fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude (Germany)
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Doing PhD Research on New Media Narratives
This workshop has been designed to strengthen the PhD proposals in their form and content. During the first part, I will share my experience writing my PhD thesis "Interactive Fiction in Cinematic Virtual Reality: Epistemology, Creation and Evaluation", with a special focus on research methodology on Interactive Digital Narratives, the challenges of theoretical and experimental research, the importance of research networking and academic communities, writing and presenting the thesis. During the second part, we will analyze each PhD proposal through a collaborative activity in which PhD students give feedback to their colleagues addressing topics such as: interactive digital narratives design, theory, evaluation of case studies, applications and impact on society.
Short bio
Maria Cecilia Reyes is a media researcher and creator that lives between Europe and Latin America, "real" reality and "virtual" reality. Maria Cecilia holds a Ph.D double degree in Digital Humanities from the University of Genoa (Italy) and Communication from Universidad del Norte (Colombia), with a Cum-Laude thesis on Interactive Fiction in Cinematic Virtual Reality. She worked as a researcher at the Institute of Educational Technologies of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-ITD). Creative chair of the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling ICIDS 2020.
During her career, Maria Cecilia has been a radio reporter, webmaster, content editor and Start-Up entrepreneur. She has developed several interactive VR experiences as ZENA, an interactive VR film (Italy, 2018); Le Marittime Irraggiungibili (Italy, 2016), and others. She is also a screenwriter and film editor. Her last film, NIJOLE (Lit-Ita, 2018), was screened at LeipzigDOK (Germany, 2018), FICCI International Film Festival of Cartagena (Colombia, 2019), DOCSBarcelona (Spain, 2019), BiografilmFEST (Italy, 2019), VDFF Vilnius Documentary Film Festival (Lithuania, 2019) and others. She is a current member of COST CA18230 Interactive Digital Narrative Design for Representation of Complexity, and Artist-in-Residence 2020-2021 Schloos Solitude Akademie (Germany). www.xehreyes.net
Further information
Abstract submission deadline ended on 15 June, 2021
Acceptance notifications has been sent out on 2 July, 2021
Registration fee: conference – € 85; PhD students – € 65
Listeners – free of charge
(PhD students participating in both the seminar and the conference will be charged only € 65.)
Registration fee for the Associates of "European Narratology Network" – 50 % (discount code)
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