... celebrating the convergence of games, art and society.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Submission for A MAZE. Indie Games Award 2012 is open!
A MAZE. Indie Connect has officially opened submissions for the 2012 A MAZE. Indie Games Award being held in the framework of the Deutsche Gamestage 2012 in Berlin April 26-27. The A MAZE. Indie Connect is the first full package Indie Games Festival in Germany in Berlin, and in Europe including a conference, workshops, exhibition, party and award ceremony.
This evening we had 9 super games to present at the Computerspielemuseum. A big crowd were following the showcases of the freshest games "Made in Berlin".
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.
