Power Up

The Play Research Group, UWE, Bristol
studying the technologies and cultures of games and play

DIGRA 2007 proceedings online

DIGRA 2007 Conference proceedings are all online now, see here.

And if you find them too heavy, see this video in between. It is quite amazing: Super Mario Brothers Theme played on a Solid State Musical Tesla Coil.

posted by: urbnomad at 13:29 | link | comments (1) |
books

CfP, "The Novels of William Gibson"

Knowing that many of our play researchers are interested in William Gibson's work, I would like to note that there will be a panel concentrating on his work at the American Literature Association's annual conference in 2008. Potential topics include cyberspace, the internet and technoculture as well as postmodern (political) subjectivity and gender (and technology, virtual reality, etc.), for example. See more here.

posted by: urbnomad at 12:05 | link | comments |
cfp

Shadow of the Colossus game in Reign Over Me film

I saw a good film yesterday. The plot and characters of Reign Over Me (2007) were well-written enough to avoid me getting too frustrated because of the lack of female protagonists. The reason I am writing about this film here is that it is one of the few films that show video games in realistic everyday settings played by adults.

In the film a game called Shadow of the Colossus (2005) is played by a man who has lost his family in 9/11 tragedy. It has a similar message as Edward Castronova's talk at DIGRA conference this year: games are used for escaping the horrors of the real world, they offer us a refuge. The story of the game played follows similar line. According to Wikipedia (I haven't played the game), Shadow of the Colossus "[...] focuses on a young man named Wander who must travel across a vast expanse on horseback and defeat sixteen giants, beings collectively known as colossi, to restore the life of a girl".

It sounds very lame, but it is actually worth watching. And yes, it is mainstream, but it is not just entertainment. One could at least watch it and wonder why none of the women in the film plays video games but cook instead. And I would also like to know which game did the man play for the first couple of years after his loss as Shadow of the Colossus was not published until in 2005.

posted by: urbnomad at 19:58 | link | comments |

Psiii - A One Day Colloquium on Wii Technicities

Saturday, 10th November
Conifers, St. Matthias Campus, University of the West of England

Programme of Presentations/Activities

10.30 – 11 am Arrival, coffee & introductions
11.00 – 11.15 Helen Kennedy: Why Technicity?
11.15 – 11.45 James Tobias: ‘The Wii & the history of gesture in HCI’
11.45 – 12.15 Patrick Crogan: In Heidegger’s hands: Getting hold of the Nintendo wii’s playful technics
12.15 – 12.45 Graeme Kirkpatrick: Computer Game as Global Cultural Object: Reflections on Lash and Lury's 'Global Culture Industry'
Lunch
1.45 – 2.30 Seth Giddings: Objects in Play Workshop
tea/coffee
2.45 – 3.30 Helen Kennedy: ‘But Look .. Doesn’t the Wii Change Everything?’ Workshop
3.30 – 4.30 Gameplay & Planning Session
Breakout Groups
 
Participants/Abstracts/Bios

Patrick Crogan
University of Adelaide

Abstract: This paper will take up the overdetermined invitation to bring Heidegger’s classic analysis of the human being’s concernful being in the world to a thinking of computer gameplay as it is being redefined by the Nintendo wii system. As analysed by Derrida, Heidegger’s central metaphorics for human involvement in the everday through the figures of the “ready-to-hand” and the “present-at-hand” presents some very old but also very pressing questions for an understanding of the human engagement in spatio-temporal existence. The wii makes the technical conditions of this human grasping of the world both more immediately apparent and less identifiable as such, that is, as something able to be conceptualised in a coherent manner that keeps the human being to one side of its technics of spatio-temporal engagement. At the same time that this indistinction is becoming increasingly distinct generally, the Nintendo wii provokes questions about how best to come closer to apprehending the goings-on of this conditioning of experience in its current tendential configuration.   

Graeme Kirkpatrick
University of Manchester

Abstract: "Lash and Lury (2007) offer a theorisation of the contemporary object as an agent in the Globalised Culture Industry. The terms of this theorisation speak directly to the concerns of computer game studies: They draw out aesthetic and commercial properties of which games are easily the best exemplars, and they situate contemporary, mediatised commodities in a field of power relations where the concept of play takes on central significance, integrating and containing a range of contradictory forces. Yet, for Lash and Lury, computer games only appear as 'merchandise'; secondary and derivative 'spin-offs' that barely participate in the life of things. I will suggest that this glaring ommission points the way to an immanent critique of their work that starts from their neglect of real, physical play as an integral moment in the genesis of things."

Lash, S. and lury, C. (2007) Global Culture Industry Cambridge: Polity Press

James Tobias
University of California Riverside

Bio: Professor Tobias' research interests include the study of contemporary digital media, and historical studies of music and image relations. He is particularly interested in methodologies and frameworks for the analysis of comparative media, in interactive, networked forms of globalizing digital media, or in relation to musicality across audiovisual media. His research, conference presentations, work as interaction designer and installation artist, and scholarly publications have emphasized identity construction at the interface of human and computer, the public and private, the local and the global.

Other Participants/Respondents Include:

Barry Atkins, University of  Cardiff, Newport
Jon Dovey, University of Bristol
Seth Giddings, Play Research Group UWE
Eivind Kalvatn, PhD Candidate University of Oslo
Helen Kennedy, Play Research Group UWE
Sergio Rivero Cervino, PhD candidate University of  Cardiff, Newport
Tom Tyler, Oxford Brookes
Hanna Wirman, Phd Candidate, UWE

posted by: helen at 22:10 | link | comments |
events

Games & Film Seminar London

Just got back from an interesting day at the Institute of Education.  http://playhouse.wordpress.com/gamefilm-event-9112007/

Dr Diane Carr organised a day of talks around the theme of games and film.  The talks were interesting and pitched at a different audience to usual as most of the crowd seemed to be film scholars of one sort or another.
The Line Up
 Barry Atkins, David Buckingham, Andrew Burn, Diane Carr, Helen Kennedy, Ewan Kirkland, Tanya Krzywinska, Esther MacCallum Stewart, Laura Mulvey, Greg Singh, Alex Sulman, David Surman, Natasha Whiteman,

My talk was entitled

Ludaesthetic Pleasures and New Technicities: a phenomenological approach to understanding gameplay

The final part of my talk was a gesture towards an 'erotics' of gameplay - something I have been thinking about for some time but it is still rather unformed as full blown analysis.

A snip from my tongue in cheek final slide:

From thanatos to eros– towards a contemporary ‘ludoaesthetics’ or should that be a ‘lewdaesthetics?’

Hanna Wirman and Eivind Kalvatn were both there so maybe they will have more detail on the rest of the day.

Helen

posted by: helen at 22:01 | link | comments |
events

CfP, The [Player] Conference

The Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen have announced The [Player] Conference for games researchers taking place 26th - 29th August 2008. As there is no information available online at the moment, I will include the whole call for papers hereafter. Conference focus areas sound promising regarding the interests of our research group.

There is no escaping the player in games research. Whether the focus is on formal aspects of games or on studies of actual gamers, the player is an intrinsic part of the gaming situation. Despite this, the underlying assumptions that inform the notion of the player are often not made explicit in the work of game scholars, regardless of their academic background. This is problematic in itself, but even more so in the inter-disciplinary field of games research where unclear terminology may cloud communication across the borders of academic traditions.

The central focus for The [Player] Conference is to uncover the assumptions that inform our work as game scholars with regards to the player and to consider how we think about and study the player as embodied, represented, derived, historical, idealised - to mention only a few of the positions the notion of player may be put in.

While all papers should focus on the player in some respect or other, there is a diversity of topics to consider. The topics include but are not limited to:
-       Conceptions and definitions of players within different disciplines.
-       Ideal and real players.
-       Player experience, emotions, affects and cognitions.
-       Player agency.
-       Player taxonomies.
-       Methodological issues of studies that deal with players.
-       Ontology of player representations.
-       The player's perception and comprehension of the gaming situation.
-       Player motivations.
-       The position created by the game for the player.
-       Player expectations.
-       The player as subject and object.
-       The player in history.
-       Playing for academic purposes.
-       The many different roles of players.
-       Videogame's possible effects on players.
-       Assumptions about players within academia and the industry.
-       Control of player creativity and communities.

We invite submissions of full papers and panels by the 31st March 2008 7th April 2008. All submissions will undergo a double blind review process. Notification of acceptance will be announced by the 5th of May 2008. The maximum word limit for full papers is 10000, and 600 pr participant for panels. Note that the panels should focus on debating a chosen topic both among its participants and with the audience.

Inquiries can be sent to player2008 at itu dot dk. More information will be available here shortly.

posted by: urbnomad at 23:00 | link | comments |
cfp

Games Studies/Film Theory Event, 9th Nov

It was announced that there are still places available at Friday's game studies/film theory event at the Institute Of Education, University of London. The event is organised by London University Screen Studies Group and tited "Computer Games Film Theory and the Future of Screen Studies". Find more details below.

Friday 9th November 2007, 10 am - 4 pm
Elvin Hall, Institute Of Education, University of London, London WC1H 0AL, UK

Outline

Welcome: Laura Mulvey
Introduction - games and screen studies: David Buckingham

Session 1: Games, Play and Players
Diane Carr, Helen Kennedy, David Surman
Chair: Esther MacCallum Stewart

Session 2: The Horror Session
Ewan Kirkland, Natasha Whiteman, Tanya Krzywinska
Chair: Greg Singh

Session 3: The Question of Adaptation
Barry Atkins, Alex Sulman (SCEE)
Chair: Andrew Burn

To book a place and register for this event please go here.

£10.00 full fare
Free for students
Places are limited

For more information, abstracts and presenter details please go here.

posted by: urbnomad at 22:40 | link | comments |
events

Link suggestions?

Hate to click on an interesting link just to notice that the page does not exist any more? Wish you could have your favorite games blog linked from PowerUp?

Well, there should not be outdated links on PowerUp links listing any more and some fresh newcomers have been added. I am calling for other game blogs, research online, cool games design info etc. that you would like to see listed here. Just leave a comment or send me an e-mail  (hanna dot wirman at uwe dot ac dot uk) and I will take care of it.

(I hope I made it sound like if it were a very interesting and useful thing to do...)

posted by: urbnomad at 11:43 | link | comments |

Play Research Group meeting, 21st Nov

This year's first Play Research Group meeting will be held on Wednesday 21st November around 3 to 5pm at M30 'The Box'. Our visiting Phd Student Eivind Kalvatn is invited to present to us on his research topic 'Second Life' during the first hour or so. The latter half of the session will be used to discuss a plan for the coming year. (room+time may be subject to change)

posted by: urbnomad at 10:34 | link | comments |
events

Wii colloquium, 10th Nov

Wii colloquium is taking place this Saturday (10th Nov) at 10.30 in conifers C002 - confirmed presentations by US researcher James Tobias (on Wii and the history of gesture in HCI), Patrick Crogan on Heidegger and the Wii, Graeme Kirkpatrick with a critique of Lash and Lury.

The purpose of this event is to consider the particular conceptual challenges posed by the Wii console in relation to technicity. We are interested in the inherent, co-constitutive relation between the human and their technical supports, agents, supplements (never simply their "objects") that is to say that we are specifically interested in the ways in which human subjectivity is shaped by and lived through specific technological forms.

At the level of the everyday studying technicity seeks to sustain critical attention on the processes through which the human, as always social, connected individual—connected through techniques, technologies and dynamic traditions of  practice— lives a particular existence. In relation to computer games technicity seeks to develop approaches to game research that avoid foreclosing the question of what kind of being is there in and between the player and the game technology. In relation to games it leads us to ask

• What kind of agents or actors are "in play"?
• What ensembles of technics and techniques are brought to playtime?
• What kinds of play and players might be excluded through the inscriptions of power that run through these assemblages ?

All Play Research Group members are welcome but inform Helen asap if you are interested.

---

Event description by Helen Kennedy.

posted by: urbnomad at 10:13 | link | comments |
events

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