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The research approaches civic engagement from the perspective of Intermedial Studies, shedding light on different strategies of ‘mediation’, the way people engage in civic practices and shape the public sphere in postdigital culture. The paper explores the evolution of civic webs, living labs, forms of meaningful play in ludified transmedia practices, and serious videogames as diverse media that can address the intersection of civic engagement and sustainable development. A focal point of the research is the role of intermedial participatory strategies to promote a sociocultural scenario sensitive towards United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to urban planning, smart cities, and environmental issues. Building upon this starting point, the study extends to the transformative realms of transmedia storytelling and the difference between ludification and gamification, elucidating the main role of game-based public participation to fostering community engagement and eco-digital literacy. The paper supports the empowering potential of multiplatform, co-creative and experimental environments in advancing communal pursuits of sustainable goals in interconnected and offline contexts for sociocultural innovation.

This paper explores the widespread practice of adding multiple inscriptions to a single artwork at different times in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries China. Such practices became prominent when literati painters revisited artworks they had previously created or owned, or when paintings had accumulated a multitude of inscriptions over time. Within the realm of Chinese art discourse, this phenomenon is denoted as “re-inscriptions.” By examining re-inscriptions written on extant paintings and embodied in individual anthologies, this paper demonstrates that these texts transcended the boundaries of art and touched upon the painters’ own lives and the society in which they lived. On the one hand, literati painters engaged in a dialogue with their past selves through re-inscriptions, exploring themes of mortality, aging, and the passage of time – topics seldom addressed in traditional Chinese painting. On the other hand, they utilized re-inscriptions as a means of social interaction, with some re-inscriptions becoming formulaic, adaptable to various artworks to meet different social needs. Furthermore, when faced with preexisting inscriptions on an artwork, artists added new ones for a conversation with their predecessors. Throughout this process, the accumulation of inscriptions transformed the artwork into a layered cultural narrative, and enabled the literati painters in shaping a elite community transcending time and space.