Please note that the programme is subject to change.
Online participation will not be possible. All talks will be available on YouTube after the conference.
Throughout all three days, the FROG 2026 Games Exhibition invites visitors to explore and play game prototypes created by participants of our Game Jam Series.
Very Special Exhibition Guest: VR Dance Club presents I Spy With My Little Eye.
Find out more about the exhibition here!
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| 11:00 | Opening of the Games Exhibition All presented games will be available to play throughout the day in the Exhibition Space. |
| 11:20 - 11:30 | Welcome & Introduction Jogi Neufeld | SUBOTRON, Austria |
| 11:30 - 16:00 | GAME PRESENTATIONS Developers present their game prototypes on stage, created at universities across Austria during our Game Jam Series in spring 2026 and as part of the subsequent Call for PLAYING ART Game Ideas. Watch the presentations and join the Q&A! |
| 11:30 - 11:45 | "Moral Cycle" | HTL Spengergasse |
| 11:45 - 12:00 | "After the Archive" | University of Applied Arts Vienna |
| 12:00 - 12:15 | "found at belvedere" | University of Applied Arts Vienna |
| 12:15 - 12:30 | "The Last Arrangement" | University of Applied Arts Vienna |
| 12:30 - 12:45 | "Secession" | University of Applied Arts Vienna |
| 12:45 - 13:00 | "Square by Square" | University of Applied Arts Vienna |
| 13:00 - 13:15 | "Lovers Upart" | TU Vienna |
| 13:15 - 13:30 | "Evergreen Hearts" | University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten |
| 13:30 - 13:45 | "InkHeist" | FH Hagenberg |
| 13:45 - 14:00 | "Palimpsest" | FH Hagenberg |
| 14:00 - 14:15 | "Art Grab" | University of Klagenfurt |
| 14:15 - 14:30 | "Bunnie Gal's Art Adventure" | University of Klagenfurt |
| 14:30 - 14:45 | "Colours of Eden" | University of Klagenfurt |
| 14:45 - 15:00 | "Drifter of the Deep" | University of Klagenfurt |
| 15:00 - 15:15 | "Youseum" | FH Salzburg |
| 15:15 - 15:30 | "Cows with Guns" | Open Call |
| 15:30 - 15:45 | "Lumodrome" | Open Call |
| 15:15 - 16:00 | "SnARpshot" | Open Call |
| 16:00 - 17:00 | Break |
| 17:00 - 19:00 | AWARD CEREMONY Presentation of the “Austrian Impact Game Idea 2026” Award |
| 19:30 - open end | Informal FROG Conference Dinner Location: Campus Bräu, Wiedner Gürtel 1, 1100 Wien | Feel free to join us! Tables are reserved; food and drinks are at your own expense. |
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| 09:30 - 10:00 | Doors Open |
| 10:00 - 10:10 | Welcome Notes Natalie Denk | Verein für Angewandte Spieleforschung, Austria Jogi Neufeld | SUBOTRON, Austria |
| 10:10 - 10:35 | Markus Wiesenhofer & Eva Fischer | Belvedere Museum, Austria Contemporary Immersive Virtual Art / Belvedere Games |
| 10:35 - 11:25 | OPENING KEYNOTE Stephan Schwingeler | HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Germany Game Art: Digital Games as Artistic Material |
| 11:25 - 11:45 | Break |
| 11:45 - 12:35 | SESSION 1: How Play Transforms Art Rudolf Thomas Inderst | Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Neu-Ulm, Germany From Trophy to Tomb: The Functional Opposition of Art in Payday 2 and Arc Raiders David Marian Böhm | Austria It Was Always a Game: Reading Archival Operations as Game Mechanics |
| 12:35 - 13:35 | Lunch Break |
| 13:35 - 14:50 | SESSION 2: Museums Inside and Outside Play Laura C. Schmidt | ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany Exhibiting Games at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe Elliott Burns | Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London | Side Quest, United Kingdom Reactionary Replicas: 30+ Years of the First Museum Shooter Benjamin Beil & Isabelle Hamm | University of Cologne, Germany Playful Cooperations: Video Games, Museums, and the End of the World |
| 14:50 - 15:10 | Break |
| 15:10 - 16:25 | SESSION 3: Games as Artistic Practice Thomas Brandstetter | Experimental Game Cultures, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria Artistic Games in the Tabletop Gaming Space Linda Rustemeier | Goethe-University, Germany Choosing Together- Play as Collective Orientation: KAZANA and the Bulgarian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale Flavia Mazzanti & Manuel Bonell | Immerea, Austria Art, Games, and the Surreal in Times of Socio-Political Rupture |
| 16:25 - 16:45 | Break |
| 16:45 - 18:00 | SESSION 4: Generative AI in Artistic Play Danilo Lieder | ZKM | University for Continuing Education Krems, Austria/Germany Prompting the Belle Époque: Building a Playable Art History with Generative Assets Nils Gallist & Jürgen Hagler | FH Oberösterreich - Campus Hagenberg, Austria Best Practices for Real-Time Generative AI in Participatory and Playful Cultural Installations Margarete Jahrmann | Experimental Game Cultures, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria ROBOPSY - An Artistic Examination of Role-play with LLMs in the Museum Context |
| 18:00 - 18:10 | BOOK PRESENTATION Margarete Jahrmann | Experimental Game Cultures/ The Psycholudic Approach, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria The TREEgame. What Is It Like to Play a Tree? Reflections and Instructions for an Art Game with Non-Human Entities. |
| 18:10 - 20:00 | Networking Get-Together |
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| 09:00 - 09:25 | Doors Open |
| 09:25 - 09:30 | Welcome |
| 09:30 - 10:45 | SESSION 5: Visual Cultures and Aesthetics in Games Alina Menten | University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria (FHOÖ Hagenberg), Austria Romantic Landscapes, Dragestil and the Myth of Northernness in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Klemens Franz | FH JOANNEUM, atelier198, Austria From Constraint to Choice: Revisiting the Visual Morphology of Digital Games Clio Montrey | Austria Baroque Music and Astronomy Through the Lens of Games |
| 10:45 - 11:05 | Break |
| 11:05 - 12:20 | SESSION 6: Playable Heritage and Cultural Mediation Lisa Ebner-Kollmann | Belvedere Museum, Austria Beyond Game Design: Structural Tensions of Sustainable Game-Based Mediation in Art Museums Nadine Trautzsch | IU Internationale Hochschule, Germany Making the Invisible Visible: Producing Playful Cultural Mediation through Game Design and Immersive Storytelling Kaizhong Cao & Mingyan Zhang | Communication University of China, China Reimagining a Princely Mansion as Playable Art: Interactive Puzzles for Nighttime Heritage Interpretation |
| 12:20 - 13:20 | Lunch Break |
| 13:20 - 13:45 | FROG Video-Talk Teasers Qibo Zhang | Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China From Fixed Venues to Fluid Labels: Assembling a Grassroots Videogame Museum through Cultural Production Cansu Nur Simsek | Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey From Street to Institution: Playful Co-Creation of Heritage at Istanbul’s Tekfur Palace Museum Kevin Mercer | Southern Illinois University Carbondale, United States It Belongs in a Museum: Collecting, Curating & Archiving in Virtual Spaces Christoph Uiberacker | Chris-UI-Design, Austria A Playable Museum: Statues Come Alive in RollaBall Xu Wei | Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China Which Play? Two Concepts of Play in the Playable Museum Martijn van Schaik | Broken Egg, Netherlands Level Up the Collection: Co-Creating Playable Museum Worlds with Students on Roblox Klara Maaß | Central European University, Austria By boat, train and horse: How museums can use interactive decision making games as educational methods Sarah Kiszter & Marko Mele | Universalmuseum Joanneum, Austria A Time Travel Experience? Game-Based VR Mediation of Archaeological Landscapes Xiaoying Duan | The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China Female Perspective as a Framework for Museum Game Design: Experience Mechanisms and Cultural Learning |
| 13:45 - 15:00 | SESSION 7: Translating Visual Art into Play Vered Pnueli | Shenkar College for Engineering Desing and Art, Israel Dress Codes at Play: From Artistic Expression to Cultural and Historical Learning Marion Plank | IU Internationale Hochschule, Germany Playing the Painting: From Empty Canvas to Game World Nathalie Melendez | Venezuela How manuscripts became pixelated artistic expression in the game Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts |
| 15:00 - 15:20 | Break |
| 15:20 - 16:35 | SESSION 8: Playful Encounters with Art Fiona S. Schönberg | Regensburg University, Germany The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Replayability Till Weinhold | BG/BRG Pichelmayergasse, Austria/Germany Making Space for Games: Twelve Years of Playing with Art Education and Beyond Felix Schniz & Kristell Pototcnik | University of Klagenfurt, Austria Self/Exploration in the Ludic Atelier: Consistency and Immersion in the Experience of the Artist-Avatar |
| 16:35 - 17:00 | FROG Video-Talk Teasers Hrisikesh Bakshi | India Tracing Metamodernism in Video Games Andreas Nugroho Sihananto & Pratama Wirya Atmaja | GAME Research Group, Faculty of Computer Science, University of Pembangunan Nasional Veteran Jawa Timur, Indonesia Talk Titel Filip Gołaszewski | University of Warsaw, Poland Stories within paintings. How video games create worlds embedded in paintings and allow players to explore them Ron Heckler | Deutsche Gesellschaft e. V., Germany Beyond Educational Media: Serious Games as an Art Form? Total Refusal, Studio Tvora | Czech Republic / Austria ALL QUIET IN THE WEST - Identity Politics of the Eastern European Gaming Industry Sha Huang | The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom From Visual Analysis to Procedural Translation: Designing Hmong Batik as Playable Digital Heritage Ruiyu Xu | University of Glasgow, United Kingdom/China From Static Exhibitions to Immersive Spatial Narratives: Mechanisms and Cultural Mediation of "Location-Based Scripted Games" in Chinese Museums Xiaoxuan Huang & Zehui Zhou | Hong Kong Baptist Univeresity, China When Personified Heritage Become Playable: Chinese Mobile Games as Interactive Museums Zehui Zhou & Xiaoxuan Huang | China Nested landscapes and player identity: how the visual and gameplay design of Temple of Space in Genshin Impact affects the boundary between player and avatar |
| 17:00 - 17:05 | Closing & Farewell |
Enjoy FROG 2026!