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Please note that the deadline for CFP has been reached (18 April, 2005 ) We invite proposals for papers to be presented at the conference Aesthetics of Play, to be held at the University of Bergen 14-15 October 2005. The conference is hosted by the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, and is arranged in collaboration with Norway's first game-art exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall. We invite papers that address the diversity of cultural meanings as they are expressed in computer game technology and software. The notion of ‘aesthetics’ in this context is a broad one, encompassing the formal structures and audiovisual characteristics of games and game technologies as well as the wider epistemological, cultural and political dimensions of the gaming experience. Our aim is to contribute to the continued development of a broad cultural aesthetics of computer games, allowing us to better understand their role as mediators of cultural change. We especially want to encourage contributions that offer analytical ‘close-playings’ of particular games or genres. We invite a broad range of game-centred approaches, hoping to attract a rich mixture of highly focussed and particular investigations as well as broader more speculative work. Areas of interest include but are not limited to: CONVENTIONS | Game architectures. The analysis of formal, technological and narrative conventions of computer games SOCIETY | The representations of society in contemporary game-worlds EPISTEMOLOGY | The epistemology of computer games BEAUTY | The audiovisual aesthetics of computer games THEORY | Theories and methods of game analysis INDUSTRY | Aesthetics and industrial imperatives Abstracts of maximum 300 words should be submitted by 18 April, 2005 via the conference website. Notice of acceptance will be sent out by 10 May , 2005, and presenters will be asked to submit the full papers by 16 September 2005. All papers will be published in the online conference proceedings. For more information contact: Eli Lea ([email protected]) for practical or administrative inquiries, Rune Klevjer ([email protected]) for academic inquiries.