Call for papers: "Extended Arts: From Virtual to Real"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Arts and Technology.

The extended use of digital technologies in physical, biological and artificial environments enables artists to design and implement new forms of art.

This call for papers is aimed at the artistic and scientific communities interested in extended arts. We solicit original manuscripts that highlight recent successes and define major research challenges. We hope that contributions will chronicle the current state of the art, the challenges that lie ahead, and the evolution of future directions.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the XARTS 2013 International Conference, but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• History of extended arts - Digital art was first confined to research aiming specificity at defining a domain that would be recognised as such by the artistic community. Very soon, however, artists began exploring hybrid solutions to integrate digital media in real or artificial spaces, later targeting the seamless integration of human, digital and physical activities in holistic and systemic environments. We are interested in papers relating the passages from one era to the next, analysing the works of art and the artistic motivations with critical thought.
• Theory of extended arts - Convergence of new media with bioart, 3D fabrication and prototyping, nanotechnology and physical computing is examined under this topic. Among the disciplines concerned, cybernetics, biosemiotics and radical constructivism are confronted in a pluridisciplinary approach. We are interested in papers proposing theoretical models explaining such a convergence, examining multiple parameters of this integration process.
• Artistic practice - Digital art, interactive art, immersive art, open art, extended arts; a lot of terms aiming at describing the artistic practice are proposed by artists and scholars in the field. In this section we expect papers that describe recent art works (from 2000 to the present), authored by the artists themselves or the producers of their works in a quest of self-analysis of the artistic practice, whether it takes a distant approach or not.
• Research in progress - Ongoing research from undergraduates, graduates/postgraduates and professionals is considered under this topic.

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of full paper: 28 February, 2014
First review decision: 31 March, 2014
Submission of revised paper: 15 May, 2014
Final decision on acceptance: 30 June 2014