Call for Submissions for decomp journal’s zine #4.
curated by Emperatriz Ung and Chris Patterson (Kawika Guillermo)
submissions open October 15 - December 15, 2021
What becomes activated when we use interactive media? What types of activity and activism are made possible by interactive art?
The term “interactive” suggests a feedback loop—a user acting upon a device, the device acting back. But what if we saw the “interaction” of digital media as the way that digital art can act upon the world around us, shaping our interactions with each other, setting the rules of our digitized lives, and helping us imagine our virtual selves? How can interactive stories, poems, artworks, and digital games, act upon us and through us? How can they compel us to take action for ourselves?
decomp journal is hoping to explore these questions through “Action as Art: Interactive Media and Social Justice,” a curated collection of interactive media in various forms (electronic literature, interactive fiction, as well as alt or indie games). We look to the “actions” that interactive media can make in understanding marginalization and structures of power within multiple spaces (across nations, communities, and genders/sexualities) and scales (from the deeply personal to the broadly political, social, and economic). We seek works that do not merely reflect or represent marginalization, but that use interactive artwork to express the experience of being marginalized, and the powerful structural processes that create and reinforce our marginalization.
We invite submissions that use digital forms of storytelling and art-creation to reveal new ways of understanding race, gender, sexuality, nation, and other matrixes of marginalization. We seek work that asks how interactive forms of digital media can enact systemic upheavals and decolonization—how we can better practice the actions, activities, and activisms of social justice.
Eligible Works Must Be made specifically for the zine, or otherwise published in 2020 or 2021.
Instructions for how to submit
If you are sending us unpublished work:
Send us your unpublished work playable in a web browser, hosted on a platform such as itch.io that is Unlisted or on the Restricted Visibility & Access setting, with the password to view the page, as well as any other additional instructions for accessing the work. Please provide 3 Download Keys if the work must be downloaded.
If you are sending us work already published, within the past year (since Oct 2020):
Send us the webpage where it is hosted and playable, as well as any additional instructions for accessing the work.
Technical guidelines for all submissions
Your work should be interactive in some way (not just a video or text document). We have a preference for works that are playable on web browsers, as well as a preference for work playable on itch.io. Otherwise, work should run on Windows (without the need to install other programs). For this zine, we are not looking for physical games or games that require other software to run (such as emulators, Super Mario Maker levels, or Dreams PS4 games).
Works must follow the mission of this call and the mission of decomp journal. As this is a curated e-zine, not all submissions will be featured.
Rights
The author (you) would retain all rights, and decomp journal would hold no ownership to any of the work that appears in this zine. If accepted, we plan to publicize your work as part of our zine on our social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), and encourage that you note your work’s inclusion in this zine.
Resources to make interactive art
Twine: an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories.
Ren‘Py: a visual game engine
Flatgame Maker by Dreamfeel
Examples of Interactive Artwork for Inspiration
Half by Emma Kidwell
hilos de una historia by Emperatriz Ung
Yellowface by Mike Yi Ren
Secrets Agent by Marina Kittaka
Hair Nah by MomoPixel
SweetXheart by Catt Small
Coming Out Simulator by Nicky Case
Tamales Con Familia by Sam Ortiz, Caio M. Jiacomini, Oriana Carletto, Gem, Jamie Camera, Cam Perry
Email us at decomp.magazine@gmail.com for questions.
