The Center for Advances in Digital Entertainment Technologies (CADET) is a joint venture of Salzburg University of Applied Sciences and the Ars Electronica Futurelab. Its objective is to enhance immersion, participation and interaction in digital entertainment and communication. At the 2014 Ars Electronica Festival, this project, now in its fourth and final year, is staging a series of public showcases to spotlight technologies developed in conjunction with CADET.

Playfulness in Public Spaces

Christopher Lindinger will kick things off with an overview of the project’s objectives and results. Next up is Robert Praxmarer with a talk entitled Urban Playfulness about how new interaction technologies and mobile platforms are increasingly making it possible for computer games to take leave of the friendly confines of living rooms and proliferate in the public sphere. Now, urban spaces are serving as gaming zones and pedestrians are the players. The public realm thus becomes a proving ground for new modes of play, fun and social interaction.

Everything’s Moving

Interaction in Motion – New Frontiers of Game Design is the theme of the next speaker, Roland Haring. Possibilities of bringing one’s own body—motions and emotions—to bear in a networked, virtual world significantly alter our understanding of multimedia production and entertainment. The interfaces utilized thereby contribute greatly to this. A key development that’s given rise to new gaming & interaction concepts in recent years is the use of cameras to track players free to move about in a particular space. It remains to be seen what happens when this is taken to the next level—one on which the interaction technologies and interfaces themselves cease to be immutable fixtures and get moving on their own.

Speakers

Christopher Lindinger (AT): Welcome and Introduction
Robert Praxmarer (AT): Urban Playfulness – Playing in and with the Public Space
Roland Haring (AT): Interaction in Motion – New frontiers of Game Design
Plenum and Q&A

CADET is funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) within the program „COIN Aufbau“.