In recent years, the field of art and mental health has garnered increasing attention and interest. This growing field emphasizes new directions in creative cross-disciplinary research and practice, highlighting the profound impact of advancing mental health, emotional resilience, and overall wellbeing. This special track invites scholars, practitioners, and creatives to delve into the intersection of immersive art, meditation, mindfulness, virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and psychology. The goal is to explore the transformative potential of cross-disciplinary research, where blending perspectives from art, science, and technology reveals innovative pathways and transformative practices for fostering creativity, promoting mental health, wellbeing, and enhancing emotional experiences.

We welcome original research, case studies, innovative methodologies demonstrations, and artistic contributions that explore the transformative potential of creative cross-disciplinary research and practice.

Submissions should contribute to advancing our understanding of the synergies between immersive art, virtual reality environments, meditation/mindfulness, virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and psychology, their implications for personal growth, artistic expression, and social change.

This is an opportunity for scholars, practitioners, and creatives to present cross-disciplinary research, introducing novel perspectives and practices to advance mental health and wellbeing.

• Cross-disciplinary advance research blending Immersive Art, Design, Immersive technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, and Psychology.
• Creative applications of VR technology (e.g. Brain Computer Interfaces, Augmented Reality, Immersive Virtual Reality Environments) in Mental Health and Wellbeing interventions (e.g. meditation,mindfulness).
• Creative Interventions by exploring innovative immersive Art-based therapeutic approaches and evaluating their effectiveness in various contexts.
• Ethical considerations.
• Future Directions: Envisioning new research trajectories and potential applications at the nexus of art, science and technology in the context of mental health and wellbeing.

Bruno Azevedo
Centro ALGORITMI, engageLab – Universidade do Minho, Portugal

Bruno Azevedo is Assistant researcher at Algoritmi Research Center – engageLab which is an interdisciplinary laboratory at the intersection of art, science, and technology at the University of Minho – Portugal. He is a European Alliance for Innovation (EAI) Distinguished Member and his ArtsIT2023 publication won best paper award.

He worked as Postdoc researcher at the Digital Humanities Group of the Center for Humanistic Studies at the University of Minho under the project PortLinguE, where he worked on information visualization, user interface and user experience design. He also worked as user experience, user interface design and information visualization researcher in a multidisciplinary project, namely 6.849,32 New Scientific Journal Articles Everyday: Visualize or Perish! We also worked as a post-Doc researcher in the INNOVATIVE CAR HMI a partnership between the University of Minho and Bosch, in the project line P6.8.9 Cockpit of The Future: HMI Concepts and Functions, in Intelligent adaptive interfaces, machine learning, usability, and user experience.

He also teaches Information Visualization and Data Analysis as an invited assistant professor in the Digital Humanities Master’s Degree Program of the Institute of Arts and Humanities, Digital Fabrication and 3D Modeling and Animation in the Visual Arts Bachelor of the School of Architecture, Art and Design of the University of Minho.

His current research focus merges aesthetic information visualization, Zazen meditation, neuroscience, and computational immersive environments.

Elena Partesotti
University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil

Dr. Elena Partesotti is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Unicamp, collaborating between the Brazilian Institute of Neuroscience (BRAINN) and the Interdisciplinary Nucleus for Sound Studies (NICS). Her interdisciplinary research spans various fields, including the development of Extended Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs) prototypes for rehabilitative, creative, and performative purposes, as well as exploring topics such as philosophy of mind, music cognition, music therapy, behavioral processes, dance networks and art installations. Elena holds an International Doctorate Cum Laude on Music Technology in rehab from the University of Valladolid, Spain, and Unicamp University, Brazil, where she also patented an EDMI called E-MOCOMU. Elena has contributed to the design and investigation of music technology as a multimodal and interactive therapeutic tool. She has been the first to integrate concepts such as Creative Empowerment, Virtual Affordances, and Embodied Cognition into rehabilitation, particularly within the field of music therapy, using EDMIs. In addition to her research, she also serves as an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Art Therapy and as a guest Editor for the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, contributing to a Special Issue on art and music technology for rehabilitative purposes.

TBA

All registered papers will be submitted for publishing by Springer – LNICST series and made available through SpringerLink Digital Library: ArtsIT Conference Proceedings.

Proceedings will be submitted for inclusion in leading indexing services, such as Web of Science, Compendex, Scopus, DBLP, EU Digital Library, Google Scholar, IO-Port, MathSciNet, Inspec, and Zentralblatt MATH.

Available Journals

All accepted authors are eligible to submit an extended version in a fast track of:

• EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies
• EAI Endorsed Transactions on AI and Robotics

By paying an additional $150, authors can publish their articles in the EAI Endorsed Transactions journal selected by the conference (Scopus and Ei-indexed):

• EAI Endorsed Transactions on Internet of Things (Scopus)

The article’s publication is subject to the following requirements:  

• It must be an extended version of the conference paper with a different title and abstract. In general, 30% of new content must be added.
• The article will be processed once the conference proceedings have been published.
• The article will be processed using the fast-track option.

Once the conference proceedings are published, the corresponding author should contact us at [email protected] with the details of their article to begin processing.

Additional publication opportunities:
– EAI Transactions series (Open Access)
– EAI/Springer Innovations in Communications and Computing Book Series
(titles in this series are indexed in Ei Compendex, Web of Science & Scopus)

Papers should be submitted through EAI ‘Confy+‘ system, and have to comply with the Springer format (see Author’s kit section).

– Regular papers should be up to 12-20 pages in length.
– Short papers should be 6-11 pages in length.

All conference papers undergo a thorough peer review process prior to the final decision and publication. This process is facilitated by experts in the Technical Program Committee during a dedicated conference period. Standard peer review is enhanced by EAI Community Review which allows EAI members to bid to review specific papers. All review assignments are ultimately decided by the responsible Technical Program Committee Members while the Technical Program Committee Chair is responsible for the final acceptance selection. You can learn more about Community Review here.

Paper submission

Papers should be submitted through EAI ‘Confy+‘ system, and have to comply with the Springer format (see Author’s kit section below).

How do I submit a paper in Confy?

1. Go to Confy+ website
2. Login or sign up as new user
3. Select your desired Track
4. Click the ‘Submit Paper’ link within the track and follow the instructions

Alternatively, go to home page of Confy+ and click on “Open conferences”.

Submission guidelines

– Papers should be in English.
– Double-Blind Review. Papers have to be submitted anonymously.
– Previously published work may not be submitted, nor may the work be concurrently submitted to any other conference or journal.
   Such papers will be rejected without review.
– The paper submissions must follow the Springer formatting guidelines (see Author’s kit section below).
– Authors are required to adhere to the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

Papers must be formatted using the Springer LNICST Authors’ Kit.

Instructions and templates are available from Springer’s LNICST homepage:

• LaTeX2e Proceedings Templates (zip)
• Microsoft Word Proceedings Templates (zip)

Please make sure that your paper adheres to the format as specified in the instructions and templates.

When uploading the camera-ready copy of your paper, please be sure to upload both:

• a PDF copy of your paper formatted according to the above templates, and
• an archive file (e.g. zip, tar.gz) containing the both a PDF copy of your paper and LaTeX or Word source material prepared according to the above guidelines.

*As per new EU accessibility requirements, going forward, all figures, illustrations, tables, and images ought to have descriptive text accompanying them. Please refer to the document below, which will assist you in crafting Alternative Text (Alt Text). 

Download HERE.