Ludomusicology

Thank you very much for your patience while we have been organizing alternative plans for Ludo2020. We now have some news to share.

Rather than a full conference at once, we are pleased to announce a short series of Ludo sessions at weekly intervals, on Saturdays. They will be streamed for free online using Microsoft Teams; no account is necessary, just sign up with your name and email address using the form below and you will be emailed a link to the live stream shortly before each session.

We hope this will give you more flexibility for timing and preparation, as well as being an easier time commitment, and, perhaps, something fun and exciting for a few weeks through these difficult times.

We will have up to three papers per session, with presentations pre-recorded ahead of a live Q&A with the presenter.

25th April
Stephen Tatlow – Speak of the Devil: Player Voice in Video Game Marketing
Ariel Huang – Characterizing Generative Inscription from a Ludomusicological Perspective

2nd May
Anselm Weber – Alien Buster: A 3D Audio Game  
Costantino Oliva – Identifying Musical Situations in Digital Games
John Vinzant – Sed Non Eodem Modo: Comparing Ludomusicology to Ninteenth-Century Musikwissenschaft

9th May
Michael Austin – Beeps, Boops and Boyz: Sonic Representations of Gay Men in Video Games
Aaron Price – From Grinding to Grooving: An Investigation of Motoi Sakuraba’s RPG Combat Music
Andra Ivanescu – Transmedia Storytelling, Marketing and the Live Performance of Riot Games Music

The timings are all 4–6pm, Central European Time.
We hope you can join us!

Like many other event organizers all around the world, the committee have been closely monitoring the rapidly evolving public health situation. With WHO’s recent decision to declare the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, and increasing travel restrictions across Europe in particular, we have decided with great regret to cancel the in-person conference this year. The University of Malta has simultaneously announced that they are cancelling or postponing all their events.

For delegates who have already registered, the University will reach out to you directly with full refunds; you don’t need to do anything. Unfortunately, we cannot provide refunds or support for privately booked travel and accommodation.

We are exploring alternative options including a digital conference and will announce further details in due course.

Happy new year!

We’re pleased to announce that the registration site for #ludo2020 is now live! See details here with further accommodation, travel and registration details on the University of Malta site. We’ll be adding more detailed programme information in the coming weeks.

We also want to take this opportunity to remind everyone to get your submissions to us at ludomusicology@gmail.com as soon as possible!

We are now accepting proposals for Ludo2020 , the Ninth European Conference on Video Game Music and Sound, taking place at the University of Malta, April 24th-25th next year.

Please share our Call for Papers poster online and around your institutions.

We welcome proposals on all aspects of sound and music in games.

This year, we are particularly interested in papers that support the conference theme of ‘Participation, Performance, and the Body’. Papers on this topic may include:

• Representations of the body through sound and music in games
• Performance of gender/sexuality and game sound
• Physical interactivity with music and games
• Dance and drama as lenses for conceptualizing game audio
• Voice and game sound
• Game music and accessibility

Presentations should last twenty minutes and will be followed by questions. Please submit your paper proposal (c.250 words) with a short provisional bibliography by email to ludomusicology@gmail.com by January 6^th 2020. We aim to communicate the programme decisions by January 20^th 2020. If you require more information, please email the organizers.

We encourage practitioners and composers to submit proposals for showcasing practice as research.

The conference will feature as a keynote speaker:

Prof. Hillegonda Rietveld, Professor of Sonic Culture at London South Bank University, musician and electronic music specialist, co-editor of the special issue ‘Hear the Music, Play the Game’ for GAME.

And more to be announced…

Hosted by Costantino Oliva, Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta.

Organized by Melanie Fritsch, Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers & Mark Sweeney.