The opening of production tools in game engines to players in the 1990s led to an intense exploration of the possibilities of experimenting with them in various artistic contexts; a first avant-garde of independent game development was formed.
How have game technologies, mechanics and narratives been modified, transformed, deconstructed and (re)built in artistic contexts? (How) has this heritage evolved? How and where can it be carried forward? What technologies can be used to communicate cultural heritage, and what new partnerships are possible?
This new event series connects players from a broad range of creative fields who negotiate the potential of games and interactive experiences as a means of expression and mediator of the past, present and future of local cultural heritage in an interdisciplinary exchange with each other and with the audience.
Presentations and Panel
Anne-Marie Schleiner (Writer-Critic-Curator-Game Designer, USA)
Matt Adams (Co-Founder Blast Theory, UK)
Syliva Eckermann (Media Artist, Vienna)
Orhan Kipcak (FH Joanneum, Graz)
Susanna Flock & Leonhard Müllner (Total Refusal, Vienna)
more tba.
Biographies
Anne-Marie Schleiner is engaged in gaming and media culture in a variety of roles as a critic, theorist, activist, artist, and designer. Her curated exhibits such as “Cracking the Maze” (1998) and artworks including “Velvet-Strike” (2002) have been exhibited in international galleries, museums and festivals. Documentation of her performative culture work is available on the Video Data Bank. She holds a doctorate in Cultural Analysis from the University of Amsterdam. Her book publications include The Player’s Power to Change the Game (2017) and Transnational Play (2020). She has taught at universities in the United States, Mexico, and Singapore and currently is an instructor at the University of California Davis extension.
Matt Adams co-founded Blast Theory in 1991. The group make interactive art to explore social and political questions. vBlast Theory have shown work at the Venice Biennale, Tribeca Film Festival, ICC in Tokyo, Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, the Barbican and Tate Britain. Commissioners include Channel 4, Sundance Film Festival and the Royal Opera House. The group collaborate frequently with the Mixed Reality lab at the University of Nottingham and Matt has co-authored 45 academic papers. Awards include the Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica, the Nam June Paik Art Center Award and four BAFTA nominations. Matt has curated at Tate Modern and at the ICA in London. He has lectured at Stanford University, the Royal College of Art and the Sorbonne.
In Syliva Eckermann‘s work, a discursive engagement with form and media culminates in critical artistic reflections about our entanglement as individuals in current socio-economic situations. Eckermann works with various media including digital and physical environments, installations, videos, objects, and sculptures. Eckermann is the first recipient of the City of Vienna Award for Media Art (2014) and was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Media Art (2018). She lives and works in Vienna AT. Eckermann is considered a pioneer of Game Art, in which computer games have been modified into artistic formats since the late 1990s.
Orhan Kipcak, born 1957 in Istanbul, media designer, since 1989 operation of a design company for media design (adm™) in Graz. Numerous projects in art, design, virtual exhibitions and digital exhibitions for museums, festivals, the public sector and the industry (Biennale di Venezia, Ars Electronica, ZKM, Reuters, etc.). Key researcher in EU research projects in the field of tele-learning, exhibition design, physical computing. Since early 90s teaching at universities in Graz and Vienna; temporary member of the program teams of steirischer herbst, Ars Electronica, Fond, Forum Stadtpark, Medienturm, Vienna Poetry School.
Professor of Media Design at the University of Applied Science Graz (FH Joanneum); lecturer at the University of applied Arts, Vienna; visiting lecturer at the Hyperwerk, Academy of Art and Design, Basel. Orhan Kipcak created ARSDOOM for the Ars Electronica festival in 1995, which was probably the first art game ever. A successor was made in 2005 for the ZKM, Karlsruhe.
Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Adrian Haim, Jona Kleinlein, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf), the artist, researcher and filmmakers collective and pseudo-marxist media guerrilla intervenes in current video games and writes papers about games and politics. Since 2018 it has been awarded with 27 prizes (and 11 honorary mentions) like the Diagonale Film Award for the Best Short Doc, the Contemporary Visual Arts Award of Styria Province and Vimeo Staff Pick Award among others. Total Refusal has been screened at more than 130 film and video festivals like Berlinale (2020), Doc Fortnight at MOMA New York and IDFA Amsterdam (2018) and they been exhibited at various exhibition spaces like the Architecture Biennial Venice 2021, the HEK Basel (2020) and the Ars Electronica Linz (2019).
Susanna Flock, * 1988 in Graz, lives and works in Vienna as a visual/media artist. She graduated at the University of Art and Design Linz (2015) and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2017), Austria. Works in the field of video and video installation and focuses on internet phenomena. Recently, she was awarded with the Pixel, Bytes and Film residency (2020), Viktor-Fogarassy-Price (2019), the Rote Fabrik residency Zurich (2019), start-scholarship for media arts Austria (2018) and with a fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2018). Joined Total Refusal in 2020.
Leonhard Müllner, * 1987 in Graz, lives and works in Vienna as a visual artist and media researcher. He studied Visual – and Media Art in Linz (AT), Leipzig (DE) and Vienna (AT) and is currently PHD candidate in Media Studies. He achieved awards like the Vimeo Staff Pick Award, “Best Austrian Film” award, as well as prizes at the Vienna Short Film Festival, Shortwaves Film Festival in Poznan and at the AMaze Festival in Berlin.
With the kind support of the Center for Applied Game Studies at Danube University Krems
SUBOTRON is a platform for digital Game Culture in Vienna, Austria. Since 2004, the association organizes the “arcademy”, a series of lectures on scientific, artistic, pedagogical and socio-political topics with keyplayers of the global game studies. “Pro games” promotes the local game dev talent with talks, panels and workshops provided by international experts and features established formats such as live pitches, studio tours or post-mortems since 2011. The series connects other creatives with the scene and supports the interdisciplinary exchange. At „PLAY AUSTRIA“, the first fair of the austrian game scene, more than 60 exhibitors showed their games, prototypes, activites and offerings to more than 3000 visitors 2017. SUBOTRON founder Jogi Neufeld curates games content for cultural institutions and international festivals, teaches at universities, colleges and other educational institutions and is a producer for game projects.
