GameCritical.net

Well, I'm off to give my first seminar on Critical Gaming to MA visual culture students at Westminster Uni

Here's the brief...

Before the seminar…

Get the students to have a look at the Game-Play website (www.gameplay.org.uk)
Get them to read my critical gaming article as an overview of the territory and also an as yet undecided article about art and games

At the seminar…

Introduce myself as a gamer, artist and researcher
Introduce the notion of critical gaming
Introduce gameplay show and discuss the relevance/significance of the works within the show

Discuss my research

Productive agency and artists negotiation within videogames. Videogame technologies re-appropriated to produce other types of critical artworks and the modalities of engagement and strategies that foster such agency
Include things like transgression, modalities (hacking/modding/making/exploiting/crafting and social modes), implicit rules, play, narratology/ludology/simulation..blah,blah,blah
Discuss some examples of artists working with games culture (Tom Betts, Mary Flanagan etc..)
Discuss some of my own practice which directly relates to the research project

For students to do after my ramblings…

Discuss how their own practice already has or could incorporate either an appropriation of gaming elements and themes or operate tactically within gaming, not necessarily as a subversion (as could be implied from this statement) but as spaces for differing activities ie second life

Questions that may arise…

Gender and gaming, violence and gaming (an old chestnut)
The visual language of gaming…how does current retro visual language affect the experience and cultural significance of the work
The quest for photorealism over style
Fun
Wikification of gaming
Political, artgaming, newsgaming or serious gaming…are these horrible terms that are used to legitimise the more ‘frivolous’ types of games or valid statements?
Novel interfaces…the WII, one switch gaming
The list goes on...

Wish me luck!!