"Participative Practices in Games – Methodological Challenges"

29.03.2016

Conference organized by priority program project "Modding and Editor-Games. Participative Practices of Mediatized Worlds" in Cologne, 07.-09.04.2016

The conference addresses the matter of participatory media practices as playful appropriations within the current digital media culture. Thereby play does not signify a clearly separate mode of existence but has always been an essential part of our culture (Malaby 2007). Huizinga’s homo ludens became a prominent figure in Game Studies and currently a ludologic turn (Raessens 2012) and a ludic century (Zimmerman 2013) are proclaimed. The toys we play with oftentimes merely a vehicle for a playful encounter with the world since we not only play games but we also tinker with technology and all kinds of artefacts. Play means to follow rules but at the same time to renegotiate these rules over and over again. The much-discussed abolition of the separation of production and consumption (Toffler 1980; Bruns 2006) refers, on the one hand, to these user-sided appropriations of the means of production which oftentimes results in the playful use of digital artefacts, on the other hand, ‘prosumption’ or ‘produsage’ signifies the producer-sided incorporation of co-creative practices in innovation and development processes of new media (Banks 2013). One focus of the conference lays on the practice of computer game modding commonly defined as the alteration of level structures, characters, items, sounds, or rule sets of a computer game by non-professionals. In contrast to the composing of fan fiction or the dressing up in cosplay, modding is not possible without the technological means of production since it is a practice that aims at the alteration of the cultural artefact itself. This has led to a critical view in which modding is characterised as a form of immaterial labour (Terranova 2000) that emerges when formerly non-commercial uses of technology get monetized and integrated in value chains. The main difference between the two schools of thought is a question of agency: In participatory culture the fan practices are granted a subversive potential with the possibility to challenge existing representations within media and technology while in the critical (neo-marxist) viewpoint the users’ roles are limited since they are already caught up in a structure they cannot fully overlook and comprehend (Postigo 2008). The conference wants to explore and establish a more nuanced approach to the practices associated with the appropriation of technology. Computer game modding is taken as an example for playful encounters with technology that expands the assemblage of play (Taylor 2009) in various and complex ways. In a mediatised society the technological objects become the stage for negotiations, their scripts afford or prevent varying degrees of political/cultural/social participation (Akrich 1992). So hard- and software is converted to deviate from the inscribed participation structures, whereby an aesthetic disassociation and a playful disturbance of the original functioning are frequently conducting such practices of appropriation (Galloway 2006). Hardware and software modding in gaming cultures, generative and performative methods in media art or interventionist practices in hacker spaces refer to such an exploratory leeway in which questions of media use and consumption, of authorship and media appropriation are renegotiated and situated anew.

// Pre-Conference Event//

Thursday, April 7, 2016
3:00 p.m. | Schloss Wahn
Two Guest Lectures and One Panel Discussion
Aktuelle Herausforderungen der Medien- und Kommunikationstheorie (event in German)
with Prof. Dr. Erhard Schüttpelz (Siegen) and Prof. Dr. Friedrich Krotz (Bremen)
Ein Nachmittag über die Anfänge, das Ende und Neuanfang der Kommunikationstheorie und Medienwissenschaft, ein Gespräch über Medien in der Post-Snowden-Ära, Massenmedien nach der Digitalisierung und die Gegenwart des Denkens in, über und mit Medien.
Venue: Schloss Wahn, Gartensaal, Burgallee 2, 51147 Köln Porz-Wahn

// Conference: Participatory in Games. Methodological Challenges //

Friday, April 8, 2016
10:00 a.m. | University of Cologne, Neues Seminargebäude, Room S21

Workshop: MOD Me if You Can! Artistic Research In-Games
Around the turn of the millennium, the act of modding computer games gave rise to a novel art form: game-art. Thereby game-art and the modding community are inextricably linked to each other, the latter providing knowledge and tools to manipulate digital worlds. But artistic mods have not primarily been interested in the functionality of games but rather in breaking, reworking and changing structures of meaning and technology. Besides the world defined by the original product, the presented examples of game-art and game-culture illustrate that computer games offer a myriad of different environments that manifest themselves in the moment of appropriation through the modification of the artefact’s geometries, scripts and sounds.
The workshop invites participants to take tours through these environments and leave individual traces on their way. Transpositions, substitutions, transcriptions and injections are some of the strategies that can be applied in practical exercises. With these practices, the workshop participants gain access to artistic research in games. The workshop is led by Thomas Hawranke (Cologne), an artist, modder, lecturer at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and PhD candidate at the Media Faculty, Bauhaus University Weimar. www.thomashawranke.com/

2:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Talks and Discussions
2:00 p.m.: Benjamin Beil/Pablo Abend (Cologne): Participative Practices in Games. An Introduction
3:00 p.m.: Mirko-Tobias Schäfer (Utrecht): Ruling Users. The Art of Channelling User Activities
4:00 p.m.: Michael Nitsche (Atlanta): Crafting with Bits
5:00 p.m.: Thomas Malaby (Milwaukee): Running Diagnostics. Methodology in the Midst of Playful Processes

Saturday, April 9, 2016
10:00 a.m. | University of Cologne, Alter Senatssaal
Breakfast Club: Modding
with Friedrich Kirschner (Berlin): How to Make People Play: Practical Advice for Devising Participatory Theatre Experiences