[Xmca-l] Re: [commtalk] Media Fields CFP: Playgrounds

[Beth Ferholt]

Yes -- thanks!  Beth


On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 4:23 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> This post about play and playgrounds and digital stuff might contribute to
> play conversation.
> mike
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 9:42 PM, Chuk Moran <cwmoran@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
> > Hi all, MFJ likes experimental stuff even if still in development.
> > Their new CFP invites work on play & games
> >
> >
> > Submission Guidelines
> >
> > *Media Fields Journal: Critical Explorations in Media and Space*
> >
> > *Issue 8: Playgrounds*
> >
> > *Submission Deadline: Dec. 1, 2013*
> >
> > This issue of *Media Fields* investigates the connections between media,
> > space, power, and various approaches to “play” across culture and
> society.
> > In this issue we seek conversations that embrace play in all its
> polysemy.
> > We invite papers that investigate how mediated play spaces can become
> > spaces to negotiate labor, power, resistance, agency, or subjectivity. To
> > that end, what is a mediated play space? What is the history of mediated
> > play spaces? How are non-play spaces subverted to become play spaces, and
> > what are the political consequences of this subversion? Moreover, what is
> > the political potential of play?
> >
> > In video game studies, play is often discussed as a free activity that
> > nonetheless is governed by structures, rules, and protocol; and driven by
> > clear goals or win states. This understanding is largely built upon the
> > theoretical work of Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois. Although play can
> > often be seen as non-political, frivolous, and anathema to the serious
> > concerns of society and culture, play in fact constitutes - and itself
> > mediates - our everyday lives, (re)shaping our material world and
> producing
> > new fields of meaning and action. In Roland Barthes’s discussion of the
> > term, play designates a capacity for variation and change: *to have
> play*.
> > Alternatively, play enables, or is activated by, expressions of
> > individuality and agency: *to play*. In the first sense play is expressed
> > as capacity; in the second sense play is agential, a co-active engagement
> > of player, interface, and environment. However, software studies has
> > cautioned that spaces of play, in all of their manifestations, are also
> > bounded spaces, geographically, algorithmically, and ideologically.
> Indeed,
> > Alexander Galloway has explored both the ideological power of interfaces
> > and code as well as the agentive potential to resist or subvert these
> > forces through various forms of play. We purposefully invite a range of
> > submissions that continue to map these relationships between bounded
> > structure and playful expression, especially within, but by no means
> > limited to, virtual worlds and digital games.
> >
> > We are inspired by the work of those media scholars who have explored
> some
> > of these issues already. Henry Jenkins’ influential article, “‘Complete
> > Freedom of Movement’: Video Games as Gendered Play Spaces,” provides an
> > early and enduring example of an approach to the problem of media, space,
> > and play through a gendered perspective. Likewise, Bernadette Flynn’s
> > essay, “Geography of the Digital Hearth,” explores the migrating play
> space
> > of the video game experience from the arcade, to the den, to its central
> > place in the living room, offering not only a genealogy of video game
> play
> > space but also a significant contribution to the continuing study of
> > changing living room dynamics explored by Lynn Spigel, Cecila Tichi, and
> > more recently Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine. Finally, although
> digital
> > games lend themselves to the study of mediated play spaces, we are also
> > seek scholarship interested in the ways other media, including film,
> > television, radio, and digital culture, construct and are constructed as
> > fields of play.
> >
> > Thus, our approach is multivalent. We invite a wide range of submissions
> > that consider this complexity, possibly addressing the following topics:
> >
> > ■                    Military Play Space: How is play deployed to
> > reproduce or aestheticize positions of power and Empire? How can play
> > subvert and reconstruct these spaces? These questions may extend the work
> > of Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter into digital and cultural
> > geography.
> >
> > ■                    Sport, Space, and Experiences: How can we understand
> > the experience of viewing sporting events in relation to mediated play
> > spaces, either in the living room, at the sports bar, or even at the live
> > event itself? How does play - L.A.R.P., Parkour, or skateboarding, for
> > example - reclaim space and reimagine space?
> >
> > ■                    The Domestic Space and Video Games: Following work
> > by Bernadette Flynn and Ben Aslinger, how do digital games and other
> > entertainment technologies augment the spatial, social, and family
> dynamics
> > of the contemporary domestic space? How does play reshape the domestic
> > space?
> >
> > ■                    Gender, Sexuality, Race, Class, Identity, and Online
> > Spaces: How do people play with identity and power in virtual spaces? How
> > can virtual space be used tactically to oppose oppressive powers?
> >
> > ■                    Queer/Feminist Gaming: representations of gendered
> > and sexualized spaces in mainstream video games, gendered/queer
> geographies
> > of video game production, gendered/queer spaces of gaming culture?
> >
> > ■                    Spaces of Surveillance: How can play be mobilized as
> > a form of resistance to spaces of surveillance? Work here might follow in
> > the vein of projects from the Critical Art Ensemble.
> >
> > ■                    Play and Labor; Play and Anonymity; Play and
> > Resistance; Counter-Play
> >
> > We are looking for essays of 1500-2500 words, digital art projects, and
> > audio or video interviews exploring the relationship between media,
> space,
> > power, and play. We encourage approaches to this topic from scholars in
> > cinema and media studies, anthropology, architecture, art and art
> history,
> > communication, ecology, geography, literature, musicology, sociology, and
> > other relevant fields.
> >
> > Email submissions to Alex Chaplin and John Vanderhoef at
> > submissions@mediafieldsjournal.org
> >
> > <submissions@mediafieldsjournal.org>
> >
> >
> >
>



-- 
Beth Ferholt
Assistant Professor
School of Education
Brooklyn College, City University of New York
2900 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889

Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Phone: (718) 951-5205
Fax: (718) 951-4816