Distant Forms of Play. On Idling and Automation
Vortragsreihe „Not Playing Around“ | Lecture 3
Abstract:
Do we play games or do games play us? Is non-human play a mere paradox or the future of gaming? What do video games have to do with 18th century automata or player pianos?
In this lecture we will look for answers to many unusual questions and forge new ways to think and talk about games, challenging the common perception of video games as inherently interactive.
You will embark on a ludic journey through a variety of play formats and practices (from idling to automated gameplay), which require surprisingly little human action. Agency, as I will argue, is not a property a player has but a force distributed within and across the ludic entanglement.
Biography:
Sonia Fizek is an Associate Professor in Media & Game Studies at Cologne Game Lab, a co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds and a co-founder of eco-friendly filmmaking initiative Greeta.eu.
In her work, she has explored media aesthetics of video games, the crossovers between work and play, as well as the relationship between
video game aesthetics and right-wing terrorism.
More recently, she has been working on the materiality of digital media and games within the context of ecology. In her many lives before academia, she was a freelance technology journalist, a translator and a film festival creative manager.
