'Digital storytelling' conference opens today
The event will run until Friday at the Radisson Blu hotel in St Julian's
An international conference on ‘digital storytelling’ is taking place at St Julian’s Radisson Blu hotel this week, bringing together researchers and students across computer games, mixed reality, films and streaming industries.
The 18th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling ICIDS 2025-Malta conference starts today and runs until Friday, welcoming 120 delegates from across the world.
The event is organised by Saint Martin's Institute of Higher Education in Ħamrun and follows previous annual conferences in Colombia last year and Japan in 2023.
Announcing the conference, organisers said recent years had seen an “increasing injection of generative AI into the development, performance and analysis of interactive digital narrative”.
The main theme for the event is ‘Kaleidoscopic Machines’, which organisers said was inspired by Malta’s architectural and artistic heritage.
Emphasising that interactive digital narratives were closely linked with AI, organisers said AI and human creativity were “at an intersection to form new patterns of narrative expression which also affect our experiences and can provide new avenues for reflection”.
A free exhibition of interactive installations by twelve international artists, running in parallel with the conference, is set to open tomorrow, running until Thursday from 9am to 5pm at the Chamber of Commerce courtyard in Valletta.
The event marks 40 years of the Saint Martin’s Institute, and is supported by the Malta Tourism Authority, Gaming Malta and conference paper publisher Springer.