Mardi Gras Conference on Virtual Worlds

Mardi Gras Conference on Virtual Worlds
February 19 – 21, 2009
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA.

The Center for Computation & Technology at LSU, in cooperation with the LSU Arts, Visualization, Advanced Technologies and Research (AVATAR) Initiative, is hosting the 16th Mardi Gras Conference, February 19-21, 2009, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Mardi Gras conferences take place annually, concentrating each year on a different computational theme of current relevance. This year's theme will be: “Virtual Worlds: New Realms for Culture, Creativity, Commerce, Computation and Communication.” As always, the conference concludes with an afternoon trip to New Orleans for one of Mardi Gras’ largest parades, Endymion.

Call for Participation

Although the concept of virtual worlds has deep roots within the world of networked computing, it is only within the last few years that virtual worlds have captured the imagination of so many in such diverse fields as art, music, business, philosophy, psychology, sociology and mass communication. Moreover, there have been very few events that have tried to organize a broad interdisciplinary perspective around virtual worlds, their adoption by various constituencies, and their use by artists, musicians, historians, designers, educators, archivists, computer scientists, gamers, businesses and entrepreneurs.

The 2009 Mardi Gras Conference will bring together individuals working in this broad area in an attempt to foster information exchange, enable community building and project future trends across the multitude of disciplines that have engaged this technology. This event can be seen as a follow-on to the Emory University workshop in February 2008 on “Virtual Worlds and New Realities in Commerce, Politics, and Society.” The 2009 Mardi Gras Conference will feature workshops on the various technologies, panels, posters and papers in addition to several invited keynote speakers.
We invite individuals working in the Virtual Worlds area to submit their ideas for workshops, papers, panels, posters and in-world events. We welcome proposals that address any of the following domains:

• Educational Applications
• Visual & Performing Arts
• Business & Commerce
• Mass Communication
• Social Networks
• Preserving and creating cultural assets
• Next Generation of Virtual Worlds
• Social, Economic, Legal & Political implications
• Computation & Cyber-infrastructure
• Government
• Medicine
• Science
• Virtual organizations

Submissions should be submitted through the Mardi Gras conference website, http://www.mardigrasconference.org/.

For more information or questions about the conference, contact any of the conference co-chairs:
• Stephen David Beck – LSU (sdbeck@cct.lsu.edu)
• Rudy Hirschheim – LSU (rudy@lsu.edu)
• Blake Ives – University of Houston (blake.ives@uh.edu)
• Lance Porter – LSU (lporter@lsu.edu)

Abstracts must be submitted no later than September 15, 2008.

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