Special Track on Place, Presence, Perspective: How the Immersive Technologies Mediate and Create Cultural Capital

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Overview
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Communities are getting smarter. All around the world, governments are investing in the pilots of smart operating systems that leverage immersive technologies and advanced analytics to improve the operational capacity of roadways, parking, and transit, the efficiencies of energy in buildings, public safety, and the overall quality of life for citizens. Yet sometimes we forget that last part. While in theory smart communities’ initiatives leverage XR to improve quality of life, often an intelligent understanding of how immersive technology can directly improve and catalyze cultural growth in a community is often missing. Over the next decade, it is estimated that some US$250 billion will be invested in the creation of new cultural districts around the world. Reinventing communities that value creativity and innovation is like discovering some basic ingredients of development. For a synchronous 21st century community, no other path than that of knowledge and culture can guarantee a smooth transition to socio-political viability and economic sustainability.

According to the Nomura research institute, the elements are in place for the “Creative Age” to flourish; a period during which nations prosper because they respect and tolerate individual freedom of expression and recognize that innovation—and not mass, low-value good production—is the driving force for the new economy. iLRN’s House of Language, Culture and Heritage invites the submission of papers, panels and posters that look into the role of XR for investing in the development of smart human, social and cultural capital. We invite scholars and practitioners whose immersive (ad)ventures contribute to the understanding of a place’s cultural nuances, connect and inspire people, alleviate differences, adopt inclusive stances, empower and instigate political awareness and civic participation and, ultimately, offer the opportunity to dream a possible dream. Come to San Luis Obispo to share your standards of development that are culturally adaptive and to disseminate work that emerges from the understanding of the history, the societal principles, and the artistic aesthetics of a community or a place.

Also visit the House of Language, Culture, and Heritage to join the community!

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List of Topics
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The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Digital Humanities, Human Centered Design, Intercultural Competence, Language Learning, Pedagogy of Language and Culture, Smart Mapping, Equality and Inclusion, Immersive Art, Immersive Literature, Rhetoric of Immersion, Narrative and Story Telling, Text as World, Text as Game, Poetics of Immersion, Theories of Immersion, Emotions, Embodiment

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PUBLICATION & INDEXING
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Accepted and registered papers presented at iLRN 2020 will be published in the conference proceedings and submitted to the IEEE Xplore® digital library. IEEE makes Xplore content available to its abstracting & indexing partners, including Elsevier (Scopus, Ei Compendex) and Clarivate Analytics (CPCI - part of Web of Science).

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Author Info
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Submitted papers must follow the same guidelines as the main conference submissions. Please visit https://immersivelrn.org/ilrn2020/call-for-papers-proposals/ for guidelines and templates.

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Available formats for this special track:
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Full paper (6-8 pages) for oral presentation
Short paper (4-6 pages) for oral presentation
For submitting a paper to this special track, please use the submission system https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ilrn2020 , log in with an account or register, and select the track “ST2: Place, Presence, Perspective: How the Immersive Technologies Mediate and Create Cultural Capital” to add your submission.

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Special Track Chairs
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Lucia Binotti, UNC Chapel Hill
Jonathon Richter, Salish Kootenai College Jacob Stiglitz, UNC Chapel Hill
Christi Fenison, UNC Chapel Hill

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Program Committee
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Ivonne Chirino-Klevans, UNC Chapel Hill
Stephan Casper, Clackson University
Paul Spence, NZ VRARA

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Contact
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For more information, please contact lbinotti@email.unc.edu