15 August – 2018. 13.30 – 17.00

Location: Design Lab, ITU.

Throughout the human history games served as an “explorer” of the culture. In game interactions the patterns of the main social, communicative, interpretative, gender practices were formed and transmitted. Nowadays computer games largely incur this function. They accumulate the technical capacity of culture and convert it into the mythological and ideological forms. Computer games are at the same time media (=guides) and laboratories where the new experience valuable for the contemporary époque is created by the assemblage of the technical, social and playful activities, which overpasses just the sum of the narrative and ludic elements of the game.

The aim of the workshop is to demonstrate how various sets of cultural values emerge within the computer games as the hybrids of technological, social, corporeal experience, how games become the media which transmit the cultural experience in its entity, how they produce and reproduce practices which are necessary not only in games but also in our everyday life. It is worth talking about the technical (medial) component of the value formation not only on the level of the content, but (and even more important) on the level of the form. The computer game is not considered as an object, but as a medial form that influences not only the practices, attitudes or skills, but the rationality (the reason) of the contemporary digital culture.

Program

13.30 – 13.50 – Introduction

Alina Latypova and Konstantin Ocheretyany

13.50 – 14.10 – Apparatuses of Apperception: Hermeneutical Functions of Computer Games

Konstantin Ocheretyany

14.10 – 14.30 – Visual Ecology of Computer Game

Daria Kolesnikova

14.30 – 15.00 – Coffee Break

15.00 – 15.20 – Computer Game as a Media Archive: Chronicles of (Game) Experience

Irina Busurkina

15.20 – 15.40 – Breaks and Loops of Social Practices in Computer Games

Alina Latypova

15.40 – 17.00 – Discussion

List participants

Konstantin Ocheretyany, PhD junior grade, senior lecturer at the Department of Philosophy of Science and Technology at the Institute of Philosophy at St. Petersburg State University, scientific secretary of the Centre for Media Philosophy (the Institute of Philosophy, SPBU) and collaborator of the Laboratory for Computer Games Research;

Daria Kolesnikova, PhD junior grade, scientific researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at St. Petersburg State University and the Centre for Media Philosophy (the Institute of Philosophy, SPBU), master student at the faculty of media at Bauhaus University Weimar;

Alina Latypova, master of sociology and philosophy, junior scientific researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at St. Petersburg State University, collaborator of the Centre for Media Philosophy (the Institute of Philosophy, SPBU) and the Laboratory for Computer Games Research, secretary of the scientific seminar “Visual practices”;

Irina Busurkina, master of cultural studies at Saint Petersburg University, associate researcher in The Research Centre for Cultural Exclusion and Frontier Zones of Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RCCEFZ SI RAS).

The Laboratory for Computer Games Research (or CGRL) was created in 2013 in Saint-Petersburg (Russia) within the Centre for Media Philosophy (the Institute of Philosophy, St. Petersburg State University) – one of the leading scientific schools in Russia. The Centre conducts annual conferences, edits book and holds seminars on media. The Laboratory for Computer Games Research has also conducted two international conferences (2013, 2014) on computer games and participated in the conferences of the Centre with the panels / round tables / workshops concerning the problematic of CG research. Among the main topics of the laboratory: corporeality, interfaces, identity, subjectivity in CG, computer game as a medium, language of CG, research of marginal practices as glitch art, masocore, etc. In addition, the Laboratory holds regular scientific seminar of the CGRL (organized by Alexandre Lenkevich) since 2013. In 2014 the CGRL published collective monography “Computer Games: Strategies of the Research”, in 2016 the book “Game or Reality: the Game Studies Experience”.

The Laboratory for Computer Games Research on Facebook: https://facebook.com/lab.liki/

Local coordinator Michael S. Debus is preparing for live streaming from the PCG2018 conference in Copenhagen next week. The unfortunate souls who cannot attend will then still be able catch the lectures and the atmosphere at this conference.

The streaming will be done via Youtube. More info will follow closer to the conference. This is the likely place that the streaming output will appear:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ0YKpI6jOqQI3wKF55_p1g

The Digarec program at Potsdam University is organizing a very interesting workshop on “Ludic Boredom”. The program and more information is found here. It contains contributions from several members of the network. Note that there is limited participation. From the description:

“The workshop will explore the social, cultural, and philosophical implications of boredom in relation to play and work, technology, media, and computer games with the goal of developing an international collaboration that establishes an innovative interdisciplinary research program to examine the undertheorized phenomenon of ludic boredom in depth.

Paradoxically, boredom seems to lie at the heart of the current culture of constant connectivity and productivity enhanced by digital media. Each potential moment of boredom is at the same time a possibility for monetization – advertisements, casual games, social media,and other pushed notifications, all seem to be competing for our attention, which could otherwise be suspended in blissfully prolonged recreational “Langeweile”. Boredom becomes particularly interesting in relation to play and digital games, which are supposed to serve as an antidote.”

The deadline for the next PCG-conference is fast approaching.  Please submit your abstract!

Call for Papers:   Values in Games

This game studies oriented seminar from the Games and Transgressive Aesthetics project should surely be of interest to many game philosophers as well. Full program is available on their website. The seminar is held on May 25. From the description of the seminar:

“Games have a long tradition of dealing with myths and monsters, thereby tapping into topics that are associated with how we as humans understand ourselves and our role in the world. At the same time, as games are maturing as medium, there are still challenges relating to how existential and profound topics can be implemented into games in an experientially interesting way. 

This seminar concerns games and play that tap into such issues, covering the design of games that tap into the mythical and the existential. Further, the seminar will look at the emotional impact that games can have upon us, from the awe and terror brought forward by monster play, to the emotional response that players have when encountering uncomfortable and provocative game content. The seminar also asks what we can learn from live-action role-playing games concerning how to create emotional impact and immersion in games.

Redirecting attention from how games move us emotionally to how they move the boundaries between play and gambling, the seminar will end with a presentation on loot boxes as a form of transgressive game design.“

The Call for Papers for the 2018 Philosophy of Computer Games Conference in Copenhagen is now available.

The conference will be part of a Game Studies Triple Conference, with Games Lit 2018 and History of Games 2018. Please submit, and please circulate the call!

We are very happy to announce that Thi Nguyen from Utah Valley University has accepted the the role of program committee leader for the next PCG conference.  He will be the first US program committee leader for the PCG conference series. Thi is already a member of the steering group for the game philosophy network.

The next conference is due to be held in Copenhagen at ITU in August. It is planned to be a part of a unique collaboration scheme which involves participants in other areas in the study of games.

The program committee will be constituted shortly and it will start to work on the next call for papers. More info about the conference and the larger collaboration scheme will soon follow.

28. November 2017

Krakow, Gołębia 16 street, room 42

The aim of the workshop is to survey different options for answering the questions “What is a game?” and “What is a computer game?” and to get a feel for future directions that reflections on these questions may take. While keeping an eye on conventional notions such as voluntary goals, play and make-believe, the workshop will explore unconventional notions like artifact roles, status functions and new roles for play. The workshop will also discuss  foundational issues for the project of defining games, such as definition types, essences, family resemblances or nominalism. The workshop is intended as a preparatory meeting, so please contact the organizers if you would like to participate in future events.

Program

10.00 Introduction

Sebastian Möring and John R. Sageng

11.00 On Defining  

Anita Leirfall

11.30 The Wittgensteinian Thesis on Defining and Game Definitions 

Oliver Laas

12.00 The Game as the Partner in Play: A Posthuman Approach to the  Definition of the Video Game Object

Justyna Janik

12.30 Games as Status Functions

John R. Sageng

13.00. Lunch

14.00  How to Compare Game Definitions

Pawel Grabarczyk

14.30 Self-playing games: Rethinking the State of Digital Play

Sonia Fizek

15.00 On the Technological Specificity of Playable Artifacts

Olli Leino

15.30 Common discussion

Discussion forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/PhilosophyofGames/

Organizers: Sebastian Möring and John R. Sageng