Motivation
Focused on game play
The development of computer games has displayed enormous potential. That is mainly due to their exponentially growing possibilities of their visual engines. But after such a rapid growth of technical innovations, it is time now to concentrate on the player. Their affective tie to game play and teammates is the the key to success of a game.
Emotional game concepts
The gamer's emotional involvement is way more diverse than one would believe after having witnessed the dominating media coverage on shooter games. How about non aggression-based concepts, that demand affectionate devotion instead of head shot training sessions? There are indeed uninvested areas when it comes to research on narrative and emotional intellience of game concepts Showing ways and means here is a core interest of this symposium.
Aim of the event
Strategies of emotional involvement for gamers in different game genres shall be reflected critically, performed by way of example and tested practically - from classic pc games and mobile games to pervasive gaming. Projects, which have evolved out of art projects and questions of media pedagogy, will attract interest. Bringing together theory and artistic practice is a decisive criterion for the design of the event.
Horst Konietzny
University of Applied Sciences, Department of Design, AG MOX
Emotional Gaming
Networks
The cultural phenomenon of gaming can be described as cross-media, trans-individual and open process of interaction. Furthermore it is characterised by its non-traditional spatial and temporal nature, which shifts between technical, strategical and and theatrical 'acting', by alterable collective networks of designers/players superimposing each other and differing within themselves. The dynamic distribution of 'gaming power' to complex de-centralized networks of disparate individuals, apparatuses, and media authorities is able to dissolve the apparently rigid borders between production and consumption, as well as those between technical effectiveness, economic efficiency, and affective-performative dispositions. This becomes evident by the interweaving of functional action - which is constitutive not only for the game design process but also for the gaming process - performative testing and playful 'maneuvering with relish' as main aspect of a comprehensive distributed game aesthetic.
Emotional linking and medial intensity
The multiple relations and complex interplay between virtual gaming spaces and the real world raises the question of the affective power of gaming. To what extent do people interact with virtual topography and technical apparatus by ways of emotional linking and to which degree do affective bonds constitute a field of medial intensity, which saves gaming its attractiveness. The immersiveness of this aesthetic might even constitute an open energetic plateau where the boundaries between humans and machines, between biology and technology, between 'inner feelings' and mere technical impulses get blurred, or at least undergo profound shifs. Not only might this result in striking effects on our social and moral terms but on our future understanding of humanity as well, including the human body as basic 'instrument' for gaining knowlegde, experience and for encountering the surrounding world.
Cultural dynamics
The lectures held at the symposium will thus revolve around the questions raised by the interweaving of formal and informal, disciplined and undisciplined, intellectual and emotional processes of playful experience and of ludic communication modes. The meaning of 'implicit knowledge' as well as of sensual-affective creativity (this goes, above all, for the exploration of physical design knowledge) as conditional criteria of gaming action will be discussed as possibility of a playfully practical and quite individually different acquisition of 'post-human' lifestyles, in which the demarcations between technology, economy and game have become unstable.
Dr. Jörg von Brincken
Game Culture-Project of the LMU-Ideenfonds-Project:
Networking: On the Performance of Distributed Aethetics
Institute for Theatre and Performance Studies
LMU Munich
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