Talks

Well-respected speakers offer insights into the entanglements and stategies of a highly complex media setting.

Time: Sat 20, 2013 - 20:00 - 00:00
Location: Bencic T 1st floor

Lea Schönfelder (DE)

Bio
Lea Schönfelder is an animator and game designer. Her games often deal with questions surrounding gender, ethics and everyday experience and in turn spark public debate. Her game "Ulitsa Dimi-trova", for example, was discussed by the Duma to be banned from the Russian audience.

Talk
Title: Perfect Woman
"Perfect Woman" is a Kinect game created by Peter Lu from LA and Lea Schönfelder from Ludwigsburg. In an ironic way the game asks the player to be as perfect as possible which can be very difficult depending on your body's flexibility. Lea Schönfelder uses games as an artistic medium and her work in turn spark public debate. The game "Ulitsa Dimitrova", for example, was discussed by the Duma to be banned from the Russian audience.

Lorenzo Pilia (IT)

Bio
Lorenzo Pilia is a pale Italian based in Berlin who makes a living as a project manager. Getting his first smartphone a few years ago reawakened Lorenzo's childhood love of videogames – the independent game scene has been his passion ever since. If he's not playing with his iPhone, he's probably using it to take pictures. Say cheese! www.tiif.it

Talk
Title: Two to four is the magic number – playing games together
Video games that can be played by two or more people in the same room, also known as local multiplayer games, are going through a very popular phase. More and more independent developers are creating this sort of games specifically for smartphones and tablets, taking advantage of the new opportunities offered by touch screens – in this talk we're going to look at some of the most exciting examples.

Marek Plichta (DE)

Bio
Marek Plichta is the game designer and art director of the award-winning games Spirits and Ordnungswissenschaft. He is part of Berlin based indie studio Spaces of Play and currently working on their new experimental game Future Unfolding. Marek holds a B.A. in Interface Design and taught Game Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam and Interface Design at the Designschool Schwerin and Leipzig. www.spacesofplay.com

Talk
Title: New Interactions in Games
Marek Plichta will present novel paradigms in independent games and discuss what media artist can learn from them.

Pippin Barr (NZ)

Bio
Pippin Barr is currently affiliated with the Institute of Digital Games at the University of Malta. He holds a PhD and an MSc in Computer Science from Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) and he has taught courses in experimental interaction and programming for game designers at ITU Copenhagen. Barr's games have been featured in many online forums including Gamasutra, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Buzzfeed, The Verge, Killscreen, and Edge and he has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
www.pippinbarr.com

Talk
Title: Curious Games
In this talk I introduce the notion of "curious games". Here, "curious" means inquisitive activity in opposition to a static aesthetic perspective or conventional interactions. A curious game may leverage conventions in some way, but is not obliged to adhere to them. A curious game may involve a kind of prying or meddling to the point of provocation. A curious game is for curious designers, but also for curious players. To push against the self-defined boundaries of conventional game design, we must not only talk about what video games are and can be, but must actively work to create games that move the conversation forward

Rami Ismail (NL)

Bio
Rami Ismail is the business and development person of the dutch independent Game Studio Vlambeer, bringing back arcade games since 1959. They released numerous successfully game titles like Ridiculous Fishing, Luftrausers, Yetihunter, Super Crate Box. Rami is internationally involved in spreading the indie fever by travelling to all possible festivals and with projects like Fuck this Jam and just recently as PR guy of the Indie Mega Booth. www.vlambeer.com

Talk
Title: The Art of Interaction

Simon Bachelier (FR)

Bio
Simon Bachelier is an indie curator based in Paris. He is a member of the French indie game collective One Life Remains, who develops experimental games, installations, alternative game events and stage performances related to digital games. He is involved in the development of an alternative games scene which is on the rise in France. www.oneliferemains.com

Talk
Title: One Life Remains: Bringing Experimental Games & Friendly Kiss from Paris
Doing experimental games is like doing research: you go there by intuition but you never really know where it will lead you eventually. One Life Remains is an eclectic French experimental collective gathering a game theorist, a prototype developer specialist, a pro gamer, a sound chef and even an illusionist. They live and work in Paris, sharing a common flat which is used as a headquarters where they work, meet, sleep, play, cook, create experimental games, give live performances. They also organise events such as exhibitions, game jams, workshops, game evenings and conferences. Their work attempts to reach beyond the gaming community, engaging a broad range of people in the cultural and digital art scenes through video game events. The following talk is about their unique activities and what does it means to design experimental games in the indie scene.

Thorsten S. Wiedemann (DE)

Bio
Thorsten S. Wiedemann from Berlin is the founder and artistic director of A MAZE.. He skillfully merges the fields of games and digital art into creative cultural event modules. He is currently working on two annual festivals the A MAZE. Indie Connect in Berlin and the A MAZE. Interact in Johannesburg. At Republika in Rijeka A MAZE. will launch the A MAZE. Indie Pop Up a mobile independent games and games culture festival connected to media art and creative industry events. His main focus lies on the production of playful concepts that fill the gap between games, art and technology. www.amaze-festival.de

Talk
Opening note and Moderation

Zuraida Buter (NL)

Bio
Zuraida Buter is a playful culture curator, founder of zo-ii and worldwide Global Game Jam Co-Director. Zuraida actively contributes to the growth of the (independent) games community and culture by lending her expertise in the curation, organisation and exhibition of games and play. She dedicates herself to recording, documenting and showcasing the shifts, changes and highlights of the medium as they occur, often acting as a bridge between communities. In the past she initiated and co-organized the annual popular Dutch indie game showcase festival INDIGO. Among her current initiatives are the Playful Arts festival and MURMUR, a gameculture inspired DIY event. She is also a lecturer at the Theatre faculty of the HKU for Interactive Performance Design and Games. http://www.zo-ii.com

Talk
Title: Playful Culture – join the revolution
Play and games are reclaiming their place in culture, society and public space. Under the umbrella of playful culture, Zuraida will highlight the ways a variety of collectives, organizations and festivals around the world are tapping into playful experiences and shape a bright future of connecting people with spaces, each other and old & new forms of play.