GAMESCENES

VIDEOS: LOOKING FOR GOOD

 

Looking for Good (LFG) is a student-run group at the University of Florida facilitated by Kyle Bohunicky, Assistant Professor of Digital Arts and Sciences at University of Florida. LFG produces live-streams on Twitch addressing artistic,  technical, social, and cultural topics across the arts and computer sciences while playing relevant games. Each stream features a video game that the students play while discussing relevant topics. It's a terrific resource for anybody interested in understanding the relationship between games, art, and culture.

 

Here are some examples:

 

Digital Museums and Art Curation with Kristopher Purzycki, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Game Design and Sexuality with Anna Anthropy, DePaul College of Computing and Digital Media:

The Physics of Masculinity with Dr. Amanda Phillips, Georgetown University

Queer Representation in Digital Games with Dr. Bo Ruberg, University of California Department of Informatics

CURTAIN and Queer Futures with Dr. Edmond Chang, Ohio University

LINK: LOOKING FOR GOOD (Twitter)

LINK: LOOKING FOR GOOD (Twitch)

Book: Giochi video. Performance, spettacolo, streaming

I'm delighted to announce the release of Giochi video. Performance, spettacolo, streaming, a new collection of essays on the rise of game videos edited by Enrico Gandolfi and I. Released in Italy, the book features contributions on machinima, videoart, live streaming, speedrunning, let's play videos and much more. It's the follow up to Machinima. Dal videogioco alla video arte and, once again, features a jacket design by Italian illustrator Marco Goran Romano.

Below is the synopsis in Italian:

Oggi, il game video è importante tanto quanto il video game.

Termine ombrello che indica le pratiche di produzione, distribuzione e consumo di audiovisivi inerenti al videogioco – dai live stream di Twitch alla videoarte del machinima, dai walkthrough ai Let’s Play, dagli speedrun ai tutorial – il game video oggi rappresenta un importante fenomeno culturale, artistico ed economico. Giochi video. Performance, spettacolo, streaming propone, per la prima volta, una mappatura di un territorio dai confini fluidi grazie ai contributi di studiosi internazionali. Applicando un approccio innovativo alle metodologie di ricerca e di analisi, gli autori esaminano numerosi nodi teorici, con una forte attenzione all’evoluzione del medium. Tra i temi portanti spiccano le trasformazioni delle modalità spettatoriali, le influenze crossmediali e le contaminazioni estetiche, a conferma che oggi il videogioco si configura innanzitutto in chiave performativa e spettacolare. Il libro si rivolge agli appassionati di nuovi media e a quelli di cinema, televisione e arte contemporanea. L’orientamento pluridisciplinare e il prisma dei punti di osservazione applicati ai fenomeni considerati offrono spazi di riflessione originali all’interno dei game studies contemporanei.

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Titolo: Giochi video. Performance, spettacolo, streaming 

Curatori: Matteo Bittanti e Enrico Gandolfi

Editore: Mimesis

Collana: Eterotopie

Data di pubblicazione: 15 febbraio 2018

Lingua: Italiano

Pagine: 220, con illustrazioni in bianco e nero

ISBN-10: 8857540952

ISBN-13: 978-88-5754-0955

Prezzo: 18 euro

LINK: Giochi video 

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RESOURCE: When Art Is Put Into Play (Dissertation)

 

Artist and researcher at Gothenburg University Arne Kjell Vikhagen has just completed his dissertation about game art.

 

Title: When Art Is Put Into Play: A Practice-based Research Project on Game Art Language.

 

English Keywords: Game Art, Computer Games, Video Games and Art, Play, Artistic Research, New Media Art 

 

ISBN: 978-91-982421-5-7 (printed version) ISBN: 978-91-982421-6-4 (digital version) 

 

Full-text: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/53864 

 

Description: When Art Is Put Into Play: A Practice-based Research Project on Game Art is a practice-based research project that aims to contribute to the understanding of the relation between play and art from the specific perspective of computer-based Game Art. This is done firstly through the production of nine works of art that through their means of production all relate to Game Art as it has come to be known in the last twenty years or so. Secondly, the relation between games, play and art is discussed from a Game Art perspective. This project as a whole aims to map and exemplify cases where Game Art successfully inherits rule-systems, aesthetics, spatial and temporal aspects from computer games. This work has in turn resulted in a provisional response to the question of the possibility for Game Art to successfully create a state of play, whilst still maintain agency as a work of art. The claim is that the friction between art and play makes it doubtful that art can maintain its agency as art through play. This claim is made as a result of the artistic process leading up to the works of art that were made as a part of the thesis. It has been strengthened through the study of the concept of play and how it relates to artistic practice.

 

LINK: Arne Kjell Vikhagen(via Mathias Jansson)

 

Video: NYU Game Center Lectures

Fantastic Christmas gift from NYU Game Center: all the video lectures and presentations are now available for free. Film and/or video recordings of all entries can be found in the NYU Game Center archive.

Below is Cara Ellison's lecture The Birth of the Gamemaker, which took place in November 2014.

 

LINK: NYU Game Center Lecture Archive

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti (via NYU Game Center)

Resources: SWITCH #27 is out: Game Art/Games and Art

"CADRE has been working overtime completely revampingSWITCH: New Media Journal. If your not already familiar with the program, CADRE Laboratory for New Media is an interdisciplinary academic and research program dedicated to the experimental use of information technology and art at San Jose State University. The revamping of SWITCH took a lot of time and energy from the team, but their work paid off and you can read the latest issue online now. It has everything from articles on Games as Art to Digital Humanism. Check out SWITCH and pass it on!" (Sarah B, Zero1)

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