Computer Art Congress 7 wishes to delve into how digital arts allow for the exploration of new creative, cultural, economic and legal paradigms in relation to the rise of metaverses and NFTs. We expect for this Congress to be a solid framework for the emergence of transdisciplinary reflections, research projects and artistic experiments. The seventh edition of the Computer Art Congress will be held in Crans-Montana, on September 1^st and 2^nd 2022.

Hosted by World XR

Introduction / Context

CAC.7 wishes to delve into how digital arts allow for the exploration of new creative, cultural, economic and legal paradigms in relation to the rise of metaverses and NFTs. We expect for this Congress to be a solid framework for the emergence of transdisciplinary reflections, research projects and artistic experiments. The 7th edition of the Computer Art Congress will be held in Crans Montana, on September 1st and 2nd 2022.

The artistic creation evolves through its modes of representation, dissemination and monetization. The proliferation of dematerialization causes the impossibility of having a single space and moment of life unshaped, uncontaminated, uncontrolled, as Giorgio Agamben explains, « this split separates the living from itself and from the immediate relationship it has with its environment ».

Since Modernity, artists have this will to question the networking of the world (Baron Hausmann’s building sites, invention of photography, installation of railroads, aviation, sewer systems, postal services...) by bringing art closer to life. The technical evolution has increasingly imposed the presence of mechanical and electrical objects between the human body and the surrounding space. This change of paradigm was accentuated in the 60s with mass media, the birth of computer art, later on with the arrival of the Internet net-art appears in the 90s and today with the arrival of the blockchain and metaverses. Artists take a singular look at these imposed media and machines (video art, net-art, computer art, virtual art...) by diverting them and questioning the practices linked to these tools and their societal impact.

When one wonders about the components, the necessity and the identity of a tangible or intangible place, certain current devices can help us clarify the fog that our modern times nourish with the question of eSPACE, namely around the question of a media territory in network and associated with networks. The analysis of the appearance of metaverses and digital territories invites us to look at the mechanisms behind the evolution of cities with their time. Cities are marked during their creation or their successive extensions and renovations by the techniques, cultures and social-economic projects of their time. Dubai has been declared the capital of the 21st century, an Instagram city whose development strategy is based on its potential resonance on social networks. However, the capital of the 21st century could be of another type: hybrid or entirely dematerialized, and structured around a public space in the form of a metaverse where the public space of tangible cities and their zones of exchange, as much commercial as social and cultural, could be augmented through avatars.

Will the apprehension of the sites we cross with the augmented, virtual realities, the new possibilities of modeling and perception, the communication and the diffusion of the works in the era of the digital reproducibility and the dissolution of the forms transform fundamentally our report to the world? And how will this digital insight offer us undeniably new experiences through programming and digital immersion? With metaverses, the historical overlays and stratifications of the physical world combine with the digital world’s overlays of images and data flows. The NFTs and the anchoring on blockchain amplify this effect of historical inscription of contents and interactions. The sensory amplification offered by metaverses and the digital reification by NFTs give the artist increased modes of expression and monetization.

Blockchain and cryptography open up new possibilities for artists, especially digital and urban artists, who rarely have physical media as a marker of rarity to monetize their art. Non-fungible tokens (NFT), which are technically based on a smartcontract with a unique identifier and metadata pointing to the characteristics of the work, give artists the possibility to declare authenticity, a level of rarity for their work and to associate rights to the tokens they put up for sale. Tokenization also makes it possible to renew the relationship with collectors and, more broadly, with the public by structuring communities holders of NFTs and other tokens linked to the artist's universe, in particular by creating decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). These NFTs, which are also used in video games, should progressively appear as the assets by destination of both decentralized (Decentraland, Cryptovoxels...) and centralized (Meta...) metaverses, and artistic NFTs are already exhibited in digital museums of metaverses.This phenomenon lends itself to multidisciplinary analyses, calling upon information and communication sciences, digital art, computer science, economic and legal sciences, sociology and even digital ethnography.

For this call for papers, we will focus our reflections on the current possibilities of virtual modeling and integration of artistic forms, offering new spaces of creation as well as new economic models./Among the related themes, the Congress wishes to explore the following points:

• Art and metavers: VR, AR, XR
• Ephemeral works and digital doubles
• Sensors, dynamic works and art
• New interfaces: metavers and web 3.0
• Cultural mediation and metavers: methods and hybrid paths- Curation of digital art in the era of metavers and NFT: methods, issues and perspectives
• The nature of NFT according to a multidisciplinary approach
• The crypto-art movement: origins, symbolism, modes of intervention, digital cult approach...
• Decentralized organization (DAO) and NFT
• Authenticity and digital work- NFT, intellectual property law and intangible assets
• Decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFT
• The economics of NFTs: digital assets, economics of scarcity, incentives
• Collective management organizations and NFTs
• Actors in the art market and NFT, institutional and economic stakes; disintermediation and reintermediation- NFT and technical standards (jpeg...)
• NFT and smartcontract: technical aspects and challenges
• Structuring, storage, securitisation and scalability of NFTs’ metadata

The Congress also includes a call for artistic and experimental proposals related to :

• Cryptography: process of encryption and decryption of the work's symbolism, bitcoin puzzle- Generative art and smartcontracts
• Decentralized organizations (DAO) in the creative process, the relationship to the public and to collectors- Sensors, oracles, dynamic and evolving works
• Hybrid works and devices: AR/XR/VR- Interactive experiences and web 3.0
• New symbols and digital icons

Important dates

• April 15, 2022 Receipt of complete articles and work proposals
• May 02, 2022 Replies to authors and artists
• June 01 Submission of the final articles and technical files of the works
• June 30: installation of the dematerialized works in the metaverse
• 02 & 03 September : Conference
• August 28 : installation of the physical works in the exhibition space in Crans-Montana

Submission guidelines

Proposals for scientific or technical articles may respect two formats: In-depth article: 30,000 characters including spaces maximumArticle on current research: 10,000 characters including spaces maximum

Accepted file format: doc, docx, rtf, odt.

Proposals must be entirely anonymous, without reference to the authors in the text, in the bibliography or in thein the text, in the bibliography or in the document properties.The proposals will be evaluated in double blind by two members of the scientific committee. The results of the evaluation will be sent to the Authors. Submissions should be sent by e-mail to the following addresses marc.veyrat@univ-smb.fr and matthieu.quiniou@univ-paris8.fr by April 15, 2022.

In the body of the message, the senders must recall the name(s) of the authors, the name of their institution(s) and the title of the article.

The proceedings of the conference will be published by EUROPIA Editions.

Conference chairs

• Khaldoun ZREIK, University of Paris 8, Laboratoire Paragraphe
• Marc VEYRAT, University of Savoie Mont-Blanc, Laboratoire Paragraphe
• Matthieu QUINIOU, University of Paris 8, Laboratoire Paragraphe
• Carole BRANDON, University of Savoie Mont-Blanc, LLSETI Laboratory

Scientific committee (in progress / under construction)

José-Ramón Alcala, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. Pau Alsina, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain. Clarisse Bardiot, University of Rennes, France. Maurice Benayoun, School of Creative Media, City University Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Ricardo Dal Farra, Concordia University, Canada. Pierre Boulanger, University of Alberta, Canada. Ron Burnett, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Canada. Chu-Yin Chen, University Paris8, France. Alan Dunning, University of Calgary, Canada. Tania Fraga, Instituto de Matemética e Arte de Sao Paulo, Brazil. Malu Fragoso, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Robin Gareus, Germany. Antonella Tuffano, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France. Mariateresa Garrido Villareal, University of Peace, Costa Rica. Shawn Greenlee, Rhode Island School of Design, USA. Olga Kisseleva, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France. Nick Lambert, Ravensbourne College, London, UK. Victor Lazzarini, Maynooth University, Ireland. Paul Magee, Independent Artist, UK. Roger Malina, University of Texas at Dallas, USA. José-Carlos Mariategui, Alta Tecnología Andina, Peru. Lev Manovich, City University of New York, USA. Nick Montfort, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Gunalan Nadarajan, School of Art & Design, University of Michigan, USA. Guto Nóbrega, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Cedric Plessiet, University Paris 8, France. Laurent Pottier, University Jean Monnet, France. Everardo Reyes, University Paris 8, France. Winfried Ritsch, University of Music and Dramatic Art Graz, Austria. Juan-Carlos Sainz-Borgo, University of Peace, Costa Rica. Luz María Sánchez Cardona, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Lerma campus, Mexico. Christa Sommerer, University of Arts and Industrial Design, Austria. Jack Stenner, University of Florida, USA. Victoria Vesna, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Marc Veyrat, University of Savoie Mont-Blanc, France. Khaldoun Zreik, University of Paris 8, France. Matthieu Quiniou, University of Paris 8, France. Carole Brandon, University of Savoie Mont-Blanc, France.

Organization

Paragraphe Laboratory, SONA Company, World XR Forum