[humaine news] CFP: The Reign Of Catz & Dogz at CHI 2009

[Kostas Karpouzis]

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The Reign Of Catz & Dogz at CHI 2009 (Boston, USA, April 2009)
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Organizers: Thomas Chesney (University of Nottingham) and Shaun Lawson
(University of Lincoln)

Call For Papers

The Reign of Catz & Dogz at CHI 2009 is a one day workshop which intends
to explore aspects of interaction with ethologically inspired virtual
creatures including anthropomorphised embodied devices such as Aibo and
Pleo, and software such as Catz, Dogz and Nintendogs, as well as
non-commercial devices that have been developed in many research labs.
Despite the commercial success of these artefacts, the academic
understanding of human interactions with such systems remains limited.
We invite submission of position papers (three to four pages in length)
by researchers working on any relevant topic. These include:

-The role of virtual creatures in society
-Studies of the benefits of owning virtual pets
-Cross cultural studies of aspects of virtual creatures
-Zoomorphic social robots
-Ethical and cultural aspects of virtual companions
-Educational and developmental aspects of owning virtual creatures
-Comparisons of virtual with real pets and companion animals
-Innovative applications for virtual pets
-Cute virtual creatures and kawaii culture
-Aesthetics of design of virtual creatures
-Hardware and software descriptions of research creatures
-Kids and virtual pets versus kids and teddy bears
-Evaluations of commercial creatures
-Virtual pets as proxies, tool and applications for Web 2.0

Papers will be accepted based on the quality of research and potential
interest to attendees. We are particularly keen to receive submissions
from researchers outside of computer science and also from researchers
addressing intercultural aspects of interactions with virtual creatures.

The workshop will be held at CHI 2009 in Boston (USA)
(http://www.chi2009.org/) and will include presentations, discussion
panels, demonstrations and interactive activities. For further
information please see the workshop website
http://www.catz-and-dogz.org.uk/. Note that at least one author of each
accepted paper needs to register for the workshop and for one or more
days at the main CHI conference.