The fields of arts and games are continuously and progressively intersecting, creating hybrids and cultural frames, mutually influencing each other. This is not new; arts have been using games as subject and material for millennia from depictions of athletes in ancient Greek sculpture to Yoko Ono’s All White Chess Set (1966) and from Caravaggio’s Cardsharps (1594) to Harold Hejazi’s game performance series Adventures of Harriharri. Weiqi, or as it is named in the West, Go, was one of the four arts a scholar should master in ancient China. However, games are increasingly recognized as having artistic qualities after the cultural ascendancy of digital games.
Games as a form of expression, and gaming as a performative practice, hold significant artistic potential. They are used for artistic self-expression, both within recognized art worlds and in alternative and emerging fan-based art practices across different forms of media. These renegade art worlds challenge traditional curatorial practices. Popular triple-A digital games have been placed within artistic discourse and practice, both when existing games are used as platforms for artistic interventions, such as Joseph DeLappe’s dead-in-iraq (2006-2011) or Brent Watanabe’s San Andreas Streaming Deer Cam (2016), but also in the aesthetic experience they create without additional modding.
The cross-pollination between arts and games is particularly strong right now. Art history has been a constant inspiration for visual and sound design in games, establishing structures of expectation and shaping player experience through points of reference, or by directly utilizing various aesthetics such as, surrealism, renaissance paintings, and medieval illumination. Furthermore, interest in what games can offer art practices has been strengthening. Features such as structured participation, instruction-based performance, 8-bit aesthetics, virtual co-presence, exploration, and simulation have made games a significant part of contemporary media arts. From JODI’s Untitled Game series (1996-2001) to Zach Gage’s Lose/Lose (2009), Harun Farocki’s Serious Games I-IV (2011), or Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s The Lack: I Knew Your Voice before You Spoke (2023), digital games have become medium, topic, and site of artistic practice. Similarly, live action role-playing is used both as a generative engine in visual arts, like in Brody Condon’s Twentyfivefold Manifestations(2008), and as the heart of the performance as in Pihla Lehtinen’s Do Crime (2019) or Signa’s Das 13. Jahr (2023).
Arts and Games are coming together all kinds of ways. Games are also a way for art museums to show their collections or offer alternative paths to art, with games about art, artists, and art worlds – like Reiner Knizia’s Modern Art (1992). The aesthetics and functions of digital games also allow for idea-historical perspectives. By pointing out the intersections and parallels between experience, design, and reception of digital games and historical phenomena of arts (ranging from painting and literature to theater and architecture) entirely new perspectives on existing works of art can be enabled.
To play around with all this, the spring seminar of Game Research Lab wants to carve a space for a discussion of artistic approaches to games and ludic approaches to art. We are not looking to discuss if games fit in the arts, but how the multiple fields of games and arts intersect and tickle each other. As always, we encourage interesting interpretations of ‘games’ and ‘arts’.
With all that in mind, the list of possible topics includes but is not limited to:
-
- (Playing) games as expressive forms
- Artistry of games
- Games in art
- Artistic vibes in games
- Art on games
- Games as material and/or medium in arts
- Curating/exhibiting/presenting game art
- Application of theoretical and methodological approaches from the field of art practice and theory
- Aesthetics and experience
- Curatorial practices/research in relation to games
- Diegetic Art in games
- Games as art
- Artistic appreciation of games
- Artistic praxis in games
- Games in the cultural heritage sector
Seminar information
Arts and Games is the 21st annual spring seminar organised by the Tampere University Game Research Lab. The seminar emphasises work-in-progress submissions, and we strongly encourage submitting late-breaking results, working papers, as well as submissions from graduate and PhD researchers. The purpose of the seminar is to have peer-to-peer discussions and thereby provide support in refining and improving research work in this area. The seminar is organised in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies and Games as Art Center.
The papers to be presented will be chosen based on extended abstract review. Full papers are distributed prior to the event to all participants, in order to facilitate discussion. There will be two invited expert commentators to provide feedback on the papers.
The seminar is potentially looking into partnering with a publisher so that the best papers would be invited to be further developed into publication. In the past, we have collaborated with e.g. Analog Game Studies, Games and Culture, Games: Research and Practice, International Journal of Role-Playing, Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, Simulation & Gaming, and ToDiGRA journals.
The seminar will be held at Tampere University, Finland, on 26-27 March 2025. The event is free of charge.
Submission guidelines
The papers will be selected for presentation based on extended abstracts of 500–1000 words (plus references). Abstracts should be delivered in PDF format. Full paper guidelines will be provided with the notification of acceptance.
Our aim is that all participants can familiarise themselves with the papers in advance. Therefore, the maximum length for a full paper is 5000 words (plus references). The seminar presentations should encourage discussion, instead of repeating the information presented in the papers. Every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed for 20 minutes.
Submissions should be sent through this form.
All information will be updated on the seminar website: https://springseminar.org
Organisers can be contacted at: [email protected]
Important dates
-
- Abstract deadline: 13 December 2024
- Notification of acceptance: 10 January 2025
- Full paper deadline: 5 March 2025
- Seminar dates: 26-27 March 2025
Organising team
Aska Mayer, Mark Maletska, Leland Masek, Jaakko Stenros, Essi Taino, & Heikki Tyni
LINK: Arts and Games Seminar
