GikIII ends

The third instalment of Gikii (aptly named GikIII) is now over. As with previous years, one is left feeling intellectually stimulated and a bit daunted by the level of smartness emanating from the room. First’s year’s iconic figure was the killer robot, last year’s was the Lolcat, this year it is a knitted sex bot. Yes, you know you have been to a good conference when flying penises and sexbots adorn some of the slides.

It is difficult to choose highlights from the excellent batch of papers. Comrade Schafer presented my favourite paper of the workshop with a look at fan fiction, logic, and DRM in Jasper Fforde’s novels. Miranda Mowbray’s remix of Sherlock Holmes and cloud computing was both endearingly performed and absolutely spot on. I am thinking of starting the Alana Maurushat appreciation society from her performance last Monday at the University of Edinburgh, and her astute presentation about the disproportionate misuse of copyright law to protect things that are not supposed to be covered under copyright (and any presentation that has a kitten with a sniper rifle meets my seal of approval). Melissa DeZwart’s look at fan interpretations through avatars in virtual worlds was another highlight.

However, to highlight just a few papers does disservice to all the others, we had some pretty amazing stuff.