...celebrating the convergence of games, art, and music.
.HBC, SPA and WMF, Berlin
With A MAZE. Interact ...celebrating the convergence of games, art and music, the increasing convergence of computer games and music will be demonstrated and discussed through an international festival. Especially technology, interaction and performance provide surprising parallels for games and music – although process and result of the experiences may look very different on the surface. Play forms the intersection that wants to be explored.
Within the 5+2 modules consisting of the symposium, workshops, music-games exhibition, installations and performances and the A MAZE. Jump’n Run Bonus Cheat, A MAZE. Interact aims to highlight convergences between music and games on various levels. There are two extra levels allowing for deeper reflection: the Games Culture Circle and the Global Game Jam. In doing so, the everyday use of the computer game as a cultural and industrial product, structural transformations of the cultural economy and developments within the field of contemporary music and art are focused upon and connected. Playful interaction encourages interpersonal exchange.
The festival appeals to both professionals and to an audience that is interested in music, games and media.
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.
Hello there. The official A MAZE. Animation created by Emily Völker and audio by DAT Politics is now online. The A MAZE. Team likes to thank all of you. You all were amazing!!! Every visitor (also the bastard who has stolen the NES game pad of OTOCKY), participant, staff, superhero, sponsor, snowman and pixel made A MAZE. Interact to an unforgetable festival. Stay tuned... A MAZE. will continue... See you back in 2011.
In April 20 to 21, 2010 A MAZE. will delight cologne. We are invited to be part of the conference "Next Level". YO!, A MAZE. Jump'n Run will present two Bleepstreet artists live on stage:
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.
The festival A MAZE. Interact …celebrating the convergence of games, art, and music, reflects the increasing amalgamation of computer games and music from multiple perspectives. With the 5+2 modules consisting of the Interact Symposium (1), Workshops (2), Interact Installations (3), A MAZE. Jump’n Run Bonus Cheat (4), and Music-Games Exhibition (5) the program breaks with established formats.
Today online!!! The games of the A MAZE. Interact Global Game Jam in Berlin. We are very happy and want like to congratulate all participants for their strength and creativity to develope in 48h four amazing games.
The grand opening of CTM.10-Overlap and A MAZE. Interact will take place on Friday, Jan 29 at .HBC, 6pm.
Before the opening party starts at WMF Club, there will be the performance 'A Battre' by Raphaël Isdant: The players get involved in an ambivalent battle: the ludic fight in the computer game is made audible through percussion music, whilst the virtuosity of the drum-performance decides upon win or lose. http://www.amaze-festival.de/interact/battre-rapha%C3%ABl-isdant-f
Director of the Computer Game Museum in Berlin, which opens early 1997 the worlds first permanent exhibition dedicated solely to interactive digital entertainment culture.
The artists’ live performance is an audiovisual trip to the past, re-creating the collective subconsciousness that divided the East and the West for decades.
Art Director, conference coordinator, and game consultant living and working around the world. She recently founded Track-Record.net, a novel platform around merging good music with good games.
Computadora is DJFW aka Herr Galatran and his intelligent happy computer. The sounds come from the chips of Commodore 64, Amiga & Atari XL/ST and the passion comes from the early computer demoscene fanaticism.
Two toilets, one dialogue. This installation executes a battle of love between the sexes, following the principle: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the loudest of them all?”.
Interactive, animated installation by Tine Papendick
What if you could change yourself into somebody else? And what if that someone was an illustrated character with all the fancy accessories you have always wanted? Pick a handdrawn moustache, an electric guitar or cover yourself completely with great animated accessories!
This duo results from a crossover of all possible sorts of multimedia. They are not German, they are Myspace and Commodore – they are Jump’n Run. They talk in 8bit, they see 256 colors, they hear in stereo.
Tokyo-based game designer and musician. He started his career by creating the cult music game ‘Gitaroo Man’ as lead programmer. In 1996 he co-founded the independent game development company iNiS, where he continued to design music games such as ‘Ossu!, Tatakae!, Ouendan’ and ‘Elite Beat Agents’.
Musician, composer, video game audio coder. Teacher at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and lecturer at diverse events like the Game Developers Conference and the New Forms Festival.
This playful installation creates a new form of augmented sculpture. Equipped with a standard joystick, players take control over an avatar and compose electronic music through an interplay of forms and colors.
Tracing the History of Synaesthetic Video Games and Media Artwork
Game designer, media artist and researcher living and working in Vienna, Austria. Pichlmair holds a PhD in Informatics and was assistant professor at the Institute of Design and Assessment of Technology at the Vienna University of Technology between 2004 and 2009.
Digital and live. An electronic music group from New York and Berlin that generates thrashing, pumping electronica; it’s both pop and experimental, dirty yet polished.
The complex sound programming of Don Atari Electro aka STU allows the arranging of soundscapes that are more digitally harsh than any other electro available. Raquel Meyers, accompanying VJ from HOMEMADE collectif, Visual Berlin, MicroBCN, Lightrhythm visuals and Bleepstreet Records, is the perfect match.
Since he discovered the Wii in 2006, the former Drum n’ Bass/Breakbeat DJ uses a Wii Remote to control, play, mix and filter music through physical performance: here, dance creates the music – and vice versa!
Location: SPA/.HBC
Musical Battle
Workshop by Raphaël Isdant (F)
Interdisciplinary Talk Show + Lounge Event
Workshop by Chris Sugrue (US) and Damian Stewart (NZ)
The Future of Music, Games + Art
Seminar by Tim Groeneboom aka WiiJ Timski (NL)
Seminar by Leonard J. Paul (CA)
Music and Performance at WMF
