Category: Frog 2019

MMag. Dr. Alexander Preisinger ist Senior Lecturer am Institut für Geschichte der Universität Wien im Bereich Geschichtsdidaktik und Lehrer an einer Wiener HAK.

Mag. Florian Aumayr studierte die Lehramtsfächer Latein und Geschichte, Sozialkunde und politische Bildung an der Universität Wien. Derzeit arbeitet er als wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter.

„Geschichte ist, was Sie daraus machen!“ Computerspiele als Mittel der historisch-politischen Bildung

Vortrag,  Samstag 19. Oktober, 17:00 – 17:30

Digitale Spiele sind längst zum Massenphänomen geworden und prägen die Alltagswirklichkeit von Kindern, Jugendlichen und zunehmend auch von Erwachsenen. Da Computerspiele immer auch auf die gesellschaftliche Realität reagieren und kollektive Wissensbestände behandeln, prägen sie die Lern- und Verstehenswelten von SchülerInnen und Studierenden.

Der Vortrag will am Beispiel historischer Inhalte zeigen, wie die „mixed reality“ aus traditionellen schulischen und digital-lebensweltlichen Wissensformen systematisiert und genützt werden können. Dazu wird zunächst thematisiert, in welchen Formen und mit welchen Eigenarten Geschichte im digitalen Spiel vorkommt: Computerspiele werden als historische Simulationen verstanden, der Game Designer als „developer historian“, der Spieler zum Rezipienten und Produzenten von historischem Sinn. Durch ihre popularkulturelle Transformation von historischen Inhalten nehmen digitale Spiele Einfluss auf die Geschichtskultur und das individuelle Geschichtsbewusstsein. Der Vortrag wird ein Modell vorstellen, das zeigt, wie der Transfer dieses populärkulturellen Wissens in der Realität aussehen kann und letztlich zu Lerneffekten führt. Daran knüpfen Überlegungen der Didaktisierung im Unterricht an, die zeigen sollen, wie digitale Spiele für das kompetenzorientierte Fach Geschichte genützt werden können.

Felix Schniz is the director of studies and co-founder of the master’s programme Game Studies and Engineering at the University of Klagenfurt. He originally graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in English and American studies from the University of Mannheim, where he subsequently joined the master’s programme Cultural Transformations of the Modern Age: Literature and Media. With a thesis exploring the metamodern tendencies of the third-person shooter Spec Ops: The Line (2012), he concluded the programme with excellence. Today, Felix Schniz furthermore is a PhD candidate and research assistant at University of Klagenfurt, as well head of the Klagenfurt Critical Game Lab. The focus of his dissertation are experiential dimensions of videogames.

The Flanêur in a Masticator: An Experience of Thought through Virtual Walking inAmnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

Lecture,  Saturday, 19^th October, 16:00 – 16:30

The Romantic tradition of the Lustwandel experiences a Renaissance in virtuality. Walking simulators – videogames that want us to focus on our primordial sense of existence – revive the traditions of the philosophical ritual. They transform the exploration of fictional landscapes into an interactive work of art that aims to foster emotions. Depending on the design principles of the videogame world, players can undergo impactful processes of understanding.

I analyse the experiential quality of the horror game Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs that, as I argue, arises from its foundational conception of players as flâneurs and the concurrent subversion of this motif. Set at the dawn of the 20th century, players navigate industrialist Oswald Mandus through a fabulaic search for his missing sons that takes him from the safety of his manor into death by the maws of his own meat-processing factory. I portray how the game counterpoints freedom and automation in mechanical, as well as aesthetical dimensions, transmuting the videogame’s archetypical eclectic procedurality into the machinated catharsis of a protagonist who is unable to outsmart the machine he created.

Ultimately, I demonstrate Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs as being capable of facilitating a philosophical experience in the sense of a recondite revelation. Mandus’ swansong of the creator devoured by its own beast is presented as a tale of early Modern naiveté. Likewise, the players are inclined to reflect upon themselves as mimicking victims of machinated horrors: by immersing into the game, I propose for discussion, they succumb to their very own ‘machine for pigs.’

Damian Stewart is a New Zealand-born Wiener. As well as being a veteran of the Austrian and New Zealand game industries, he has worked as a software engineer for interactive design, AR and VR projects, and as a professional artist and musician. Damian is currently studying toward an MA in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at the University of Vienna.

“This Is For The Players”: Industry Construction of the “Gamer” Identity

Lecture,  Saturday, 19^th October, 15:30 – 16:00

In 2019, almost everybody plays videogames. However, the dominant cultural narrative around videogames says something different: the stereotypical “gamer” is still an under-socialized straight white young man playing with toys in the basement. Negative stigma leaves many players unwilling to self-identify as “gamers”; those who are willing to do so often work to reinforce the stereotype (despite its negative connotations) by actively excluding those who do not “fit”.

Drawing from a growing body of recent scholarship that examines the behaviours and identities of players often subject to exclusion from videogame culture (such as women, queer people, and people of colour), the present work argues that the “gamer” identity is a subcultural formation constructed by and for the benefit of the videogame industry, and that the cultural idea of the “videogame” exists hand-in-hand with the stereotype of the “gamer”.

To illustrate this process, an analysis of selected scenes from the film Wine Country (2019) and the TV programme Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (2017) reveals how these media construct a “gamer” identity in tandem with a particular conception of the videogame as a cultural artefact. Comparison with industry practises and “gamer” behaviours suggests a similar parallel construction of identity and cultural artefact at work in the videogame industry; here, however, the reality of a broad, diverse audience of videogame players renders such constructions inherently contradictory. This causes ongoing conflict and exclusion and ultimately stunts artistic growth within the medium; until it is addressed, irrespective of technological improvement, the promise of videogames will remain unfulfilled.

Harald is a games researcher, media pedagogue and cultural mediator based in Graz, Austria. He works for the Styrian Government as an expert in digital culture.

At Ludovico – an NGO focusing on the culture and pedagogics of play – he is responsible for digital play and organizes the annual button Festival of Gaming Culture. And at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Graz he is currently finishing his doctoral thesis on the interplay of digital games and their social surroundings.

Men at Play – Analyzing games as masculine retreats

Lecture,  Saturday, 19^th October, 15:00 – 15:30

Over decades games have grown to be playgrounds of masculinity. Much of their narratives and visual design cater to concepts of male heroism and the heterosexual, male gaze. Their communities are dominated by men and have in many ways proven to react questionably to female presence and, obviously, feminist criticism. The same people who argue that it’s “just about games” become very emotional and determined when defending these games against change.

Feminist criticism has, in many aspects of social life, forced patriarchal structures to justify themselves, questioning existing norms of male behavior and power. Digital games, at the same time, offer what can be described as counter-places – places people turn to when they feel pressure or experience too little freedom and agency in other parts of their lives. Over decades they have become retreats for what is perceived to be traditional masculinity. While being part of the internationally dominating group of white, heterosexual males, many players do not experience themselves to be powerful outside of game worlds.

This talk will link what has repeatedly been described as a crisis of masculinity to gaming culture and Gamergate. Looking at games as phenomena between heterotopia and utopia it will take into account Juul’s concept of games as half-real in order to offer an interpretation of their role in the bigger context of a fast changing society.

Birkner, Achim, MA, Lehrkraft für besondere Aufgaben am Lehrstuhl Medien- und Erwachsenenbildung, Fakultät für Humanwissenschaften, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Madgeburg.

Arbeitsschwerpunkte: Erfahrungsorientierte Hochschuldidaktik; Wissenschaftlich-technologische Grundlagen der Digitalisierung; Machine Learning in erziehungswissenschaftlichen Kontexten; Handlungsorientierte Medien- und Computerpädagogik mit älteren Erwachsenen

Augmented Experience und nicht Augmented Reality

Vortrag,  Samstag 19. Oktober, 12:30 – 13:00

In diesem Vortrag werden die erkenntnistheoretischen und -logischen Grundsätze Immanuel Kants in Zusammenhang mit Augmented Reality gebracht. Laut Kant sei Erkenntnis direkt an Erfahrung gebunden. Erfahrung wiederum stehe in direkter Abhängigkeit zu den Grundzügen menschlicher Wahrnehmung.

Um zu verdeutlichen, welche Einflüsse Augmented Reality Technologien auf menschliche Erkenntnis haben können, werden in diesem Vortrag eingangs die Grenzen menschlicher Wahrnehmung entlang sensorischer Limitationen des Menschen verdeutlicht. Im zweiten Schritt werden die naturwissenschaftlich-physikalischen Phänomene betrachtet, auf denen digitale Technologien aufsetzen und es wird deutlich gemacht, ab wann für den Menschen Wahrnehmung nur noch mithilfe technischer Hilfsmittel möglich ist. Konkret wird hierzu vor Ort demonstriert, welche optischen und akustischen Limitationen der Mensch besitzt und in welchen Frequenzbereichen Signale vorhanden sind, die ihn jederzeit umgeben.

1. Es werden akustische Signale wahrnehmbar gemacht, die für den Menschen nicht hörbar sind.
2. Es wird Licht in einer Wellenlänge benutzt, die für den Menschen unsichtbar ist, aber von Kamerasensoren erfasst werden kann (Nachtsicht mit Infrarotlicht von einer Wellenlänge von  940nm).
3. Es werden Signale sichtbar gemacht, die im elektromagnetischen Frequenzband vor Ort vorhanden sind (per Software Defined Radio).

Im dritten Teil der Präsentation wird erörtert, wie mithilfe von AR menschliche Wahrnehmung augmentiert werden kann und wie der Mensch dies gewinnbringend zur Erkenntnisgewinnung einsetzen kann. Dabei wird sich an Beispielen aus Computerspielen orientiert. Beispiele wären Minimaps, Radarähnliche Indikatoren, Richtungsanzeigen, Lage und Ausrichtungsdarstellung u.A..