... celebrating the convergence of games, art and society.
Games Culture Circle
Games Culture Circle
About Games Culture Circle –
Games Culture Circle will feature artists, game designers, performers, film directors and other players on the contemporary media and arts scene, who will discuss digital games culture in an interdisciplinary setting. Andreas Lange, director of the Computerspielemuseum Berlin, is our resident expert who will contribute his knowledge and experience to the debate.
Game Culture Circle is explicitly not an academic format but focuses on the exchange of experiences, opinions, and visions. We are interested in games, the people who play them, and the emotions they elicit.
A MAZE. Indie Connect Prelude. The Indie Gaming Showcase
Friday: free - Saturday: free
A MAZE. Indie Connect Prelude - Oct28-29, 2011 @PLATOON - Alte Schönhauser Str. 3 - 10119 Berlin
This friday evenings at 18:30 begins the countdown to one of the biggest indie gaming festivals to hit Berlin! at PLATOON yard, we will be hosting the A MAZE. Indie Connect Prelude: Indie Gaming Showcase (28.-29.10), where some of Berlin's most established indie game designer, developers and enthusiasts will join us for presentations concerning everything indie games. workshops and game jams will follow on saturday, all to catalyze and unite the Berlin (and European) game scene.
Games Culture Circle: Fuck the Magic Circle. Do we need Game Ethics!?
Datum: Sa. 30. September 2011
Einlass: 19:00 Uhr
Beginn: 19:30 Uhr
Talkgäste:
Fares Kayali (Artist)
Felix Bohatsch (Indie Game Designer)
Sebastian Deterding (Media Reseacher)
Sina Kamala Kaufmann (Social Gaming Expert)
Früher haben wir Brettspiele am Tisch gespielt und Räuber und Gendarm auf dem Schulhof oder im Nachbargarten. Später gab es dann Spiele auf dem Computer.
DGT 11 - 5. Gamestage und Entwicklerkonferenz Quo Vadis - offizielle Abschlussparty
In der Clubnacht A MAZE. Jump n Run wird die Verbindung von interaktiver Kunst und Musik spielerisch erprobt und erfahrbar gemacht. Eine Kombination aus Bandauftritten, Live Acts und DJ-Sets auf der einen und interaktiven Installationen, spielerischen Visuals und computerspielbasierten Ausstellungsobjekten auf der anderen Seite macht den Festraum zu einem umfassenden künstlerischen Erlebnis. Die Architektur des Clubs wird in der Umsetzung aktiv eingebunden.
DGT 11 - 5. Gamestage Berlin und Entwicklerkonferenz Quo Vadis - BCC - Alexanderstr. 11 - Raum B 05 - Uhrzeit: 16.30 - 18:30
Deutsche Gamestage: Erstmals mit Konferenz für Indie-Entwickler
Premiere bei den Deutschen Gamestagen 2011! Auf der A MAZE. Indie Connect diskutieren Indie-Entwickler den Status Quo der hiesigen Szene.
Indie-Games haben mittlerweile den Sprung vom Kult zum kommerziellen Erfolg vollzogen. Innovative Spielkonzepte die ohne teure Engines, Lizenzen und aufwendige Grafiken auskommen, begeistern mittlerweile Massen an Spielern. Die A MAZE. Indie Connect bietet deutschen Indie-Entwicklern erstmals eine Plattform um Trends und den aktuellen Stand der deutschsprachigen Szene zu besprechen.
Did you ever want to look through walls or into the future? Be invincible, or let a robot do the work while everyone else is slaving away? In computer games, it’s easy to gain advantage. All you need is a cheat code. Cheating is not just about taking a shortcut to victory, but also about circumventing the rules, breaking them, or redefining them altogether. Cheaters are playing with, not by the rules. Forbidden fruits are always sweeter.
Games have been credited with a number of useful side effects – from increasing productivity to making us into better human beings. But wait: what about fun? Isn’t play supposed to be fun? What ever happened to our right to escape into the virtual worlds of games? We want useless, purposeless, unserious games!
After a fantastic Games Culture Circle (GCC) at the A MAZE. Interact Festival in January we like to invite you to the upcoming talk-show with indie game design star Heather Kelley.
The topics to discuss range from indie games development and business, game prototype funding, new forms of distribution, sexual content in video games, games in galleries, the relationship of games and art.
The A MAZE. Interact Symposium provides the theoretical backdrop for the theme of convergences between computer games and music. Both media blur the borders between pop culture and high culture. Both are based on the creative design of new experiences. Both can entertain. Both can cause despair. Both thrive from and with other media. Using computer games as a starting point, the lectures of top-class international speakers offer fascinating insights into the networks and strategies applied by a complex media compound, which challenge and alter existing production and reception methods.
With four extravagant workshops, invited artists of A MAZE. Interact share their insights into the technological side of games, art, and music. In doing so, the program itself represents the convergence of different presentation formats. Each of the course instructors is part of another festival module. Workshop registration:workshops@amaze-festival.de
The convergence of computer games and music allows for a higher level of sonic creativity by reinterpreting the creation of music as such. A joystick can not only be an interface for the control of a synthesizer or drum machine. It also provides new forms of haptic experience as well as of auditory access to music. This innovation is, in fact, enforced by substituting the controller for a visual detection of the player’s performance and by translating this performance into music. In doing so, the access to music becomes more direct and intuitive at the same time. Thus, game art dealing with musical content is like developing new musical instruments.
This clubnight forms the closing party of A MAZE. Interact. A mix of game-inspired music, live acts, and DJ-sets combined with interactive installations, playful visuals, and exhibits based on computer games is bound to create an all-encompassing highlight to the festival experience. Two floors interspersed with several interactive enhancements invite you to celebrate the convergence of games, art, and music.
17 different computer games with music at the core of their gameplay: highlights of an ongoing convergence between the music and game industries. The chosen examples were all published as consumer products and illustrate shared principles of popular culture. Historical landmarks such as ‘Moondust’ from 1983 complement block busters from 2009´ like ‘Rockband’ or ‘Brütal Legend’. Links to specific music scenes – e.g. Beatlemania, Heavy Metal, DJ-culture or simply Pop – are aesthetically prominent or define the games’ narratives. The exhibition is open for playing and participation, offering both contrast and reference points to the art installations and performances at the festival.
This talk show event is part of an ongoing cooperation with the Computerspiele Museum Berlin. In order to establish a serious discourse on video game culture, high profile international speakers with backgrounds in game development, journalism, business, music, film, fashion, art, and many more, are invited to share their visions and insights on a continuous level. The GCC does not only bring people together in a relaxed atmosphere for an inspiring chat about the convergence of games, art, and everyday life; moreover, one of the core ideas is to build up networks that go beyond foreseeable groups of people who share the same interests. It is about interdisciplinary inspiration and encouraging unexpected partnerships. Breaking new ground is key.
SPA, Friday, January 29 – Sunday 31, 2010
Final Presentation:
.HBC, Sunday, January 31, 2010, 15:00
Creating games collaboratively within 48 hours – that is the core premise
of every game jam. This one, taking place from Friday 15:00 to Sunday
15:00, is special: on over 120 sites worldwide, people come together
and do not stop coding, designing, illustrating, making music, playing
or whatever else it takes to make good games, until they have created
just that: good games.
On an economic level, smash hits like ‘SingStar’, ‘Lips’, ‘Guitar Hero’, ‘DJ Hero’, and ‘Rock Band’ should not be viewed as competition to the music industry, but as an alternative to established channels of distribution. Yet computer games include specific structures and affordances that stress traditional ways of reception as well as production. Together with their host Verena Dauerer, pioneers from both industries formulate scenarios based on best practice and profound experience.
Games Culture Circle - Lecture with Alan N. Shapiro
May 7 2009
We stand on the threshold of a paradigm shift in computer science. Since the Second World War generation of information theorists such as Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, and Claude Shannon, we have operated within the paradigm of digital or binary computing. In the next years, Artificial Life, quantum computing in software, and complex adaptive systems will emerge. A-Life is a paradigm of software as living organism rather than as mechanistic machine. It will be fundamentally more powerful in what it can do than existing informatic programs. It will have the properties of self-learning, real-time systemic awareness, and autonomous thinking. More powerful software can be of great benefit to humanity.
On March 31st, 2009, the German Video Game-Award will be conferred for the first time by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Bernd Neumann, and the game-associations BIU, G.A.M.E, BITKOM and BVDW. The prize awards ‘outstanding German game productions’ in nine categories. Prior to the award ceremony we’d like to question the criteria of the prize as well as its significance regarding the cultural value of video games. References and connections to former ‘modern’ media like film will be an obvious topic.
A MAZE. presents since 2010 the Global Game Jam in Berlin. This year in cooperation with the Computerespielemuseum and Berlin based Game Jams as Gamestorm and Berlin Mini Jam. A MAZE.
A MAZE. recommends: 5 Buttons Game Design Competition Berlin
DO NOT MISS YOUR CHANCE!
You've always wanted to have an excuse to test your game production skills, but you've never managed to !nd a good one? Have you ever dreamt of having your cute experimental game played by a crowd of craving people on a quite unique game controller? With a huge screen and high power audio system? And the chance to win up to 1200€?
A MAZE. presents the Global Game Jam 2012 in cooperation with Computerspiele Museum, Gamestorm, Mini Jam Berlin from 27 January to 29 January 2011. Starts on Friday at 4pm and ends on Sunday at 4pm as well.
We'll celebrate the fresh cooked games with presentations of the teams on Sunday 29 January at Computerspiele Museum. This time you can play them from the scratch!
By combining courage for experimentation and joy in gaming, A MAZE. celebrates the convergence of computer games and art. A MAZE. is more than simply a festival – it is a series of events as well as a conceptual format that offers a regularly emerging platform for interdisciplinary exchange. Creatives are encouraged to break down the conventional computer game and surpass established concepts of play.
