The ArtsIT team are delighted to introduce the proceedings of the 9th European Alliance for Innovation (EAI) International Conference on Arts and Technology, Interactivity, and Game Creation (ArtsIT 2020), held as an online virtual conference in Cyberspace, December 10–11, 2020.
ArtsIT is a place where people in the arts, design and technology meet – unfortu- nately, due to the COVID-19 situation, the 2020 edition of this ‘meeting’ had to take place remotely via a live video stream of presentations, which is now archived for viewing at the URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBVugi9RpX8&t=31s.
Opening the proceedings was a first-class keynote given by Portuguese international artist João Martinho Moura. Moura is a media artist and researcher, interested in electronic art and embodiment, virtual environments, computer music, and computa- tional aesthetics. For the past 20 years, he has been adopting new ways to present the body and space in digital media. He has a particular interest in art and science, per- ception, visualization, and the intersections between art and technology. Since the 2000s, his work has been presented internationally, several times, in more than 18 countries, including some city-scale exhibitions. João has authored numerous publi- cations in and across the fields of media arts, interfaces, embodiment, virtual reality, and visualization. As a media artist, he has collaborated with a number of renowned international institutions, such as the European Space Agency (ESA), the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and was selected as an artist in residence for the European Commission’s STARTS and MindSpaces initiatives. In 2013, João Martinho Moura received the National Multimedia Art and Culture Award in Lisbon for his contributions to the field of digital arts in Portugal. A feature in João’s ArtsIT keynote presentation was his most recent avant-garde works within dance performance and installation where he explores at and beyond the cutting edge of domains by experimenting with virtual and extended realities. Through this it was clear how he is offering and creating new actor and audience experiences, bridging established divides and confines, so as to establish new performer/audience virtual interactive spaces pushing the limits of the state of the art in the field. We are also grateful for and acknowledge the important contribution by João as webmaster for the conference website.