[spectre] game off/on empyre

[Melinda Rackham]

please join in
http://www.subtle.net/empyre/

  "Video games are the first stage in a plan for machines to help the
human  race, the only plan that offers a future for intelligence. For
the moment,  the insufferable philosophy of our time is contained in
the Pac-Man. I didn't  know, when I was sacrificing all my coins to
him, that he was going to conquer the world. Perhaps because he is the
  most graphic metaphor of Man's Fate. He puts into true perspective
the  balance of power between the  individual and the environment, and
he  tells us soberly that though there may be honor in carrying out
the  greatest number of victorious attacks, it always comes a
cropper." -  Chris Marker, 'Sunless'

  Truncated, repetitive, coin-operated nihilism. To a point. The
'insufferable philosophy of our time' is not a single object or
symbol, but the array of signs and symbols placed at odds with each
other, made to wage a type of war we aren't told how to engage with.
We were told that play would desensitise, depoliticise and disconnect
us, and now games are presented by the museum as the latest historical
  and contemporary cultural artefacts.

  Whether we play or not,  whether we live in the moneyed west or not,
games occur. Using the  rubric of 'game off', our stellar guests will
tease out intertwining threads of play culture, game art, game theory
in multi-streamed dialogues moderated by Christian  McCrea and Melinda
Rackham –  interrogating the frictions and frissons of experiential
pleasure,  avatar uprisings, the game engine medium, collection and
archiving,  futility and joy.

Please welcome the players who will appear throughout the month:

---> Marguerite Charmante is a tagged game figure. She reflects
ludically  on futility as resistance, toys and game fashion. 2005 she
and  MosMaxHax co-founded the international association LUDIC SOCIETY
to  provoke a new discipline on play and cultures. The affiliations
club-magazine appears regularly in print.
  http://www.ludic-society.net

---> Daphne Dragona is a new media arts curator and organiser based in
  Athens. Recently she has been focusing on game arts and currently she
  is a co – curator of  Homo Ludens Ludens, an exhibition opening in
April 08 in Laboral Centro de Arte y Industrial, Gjion Spain.

---> Margarete Jahrmann is professor at the Game Design Department of
the  University of Arts and Design Zurich and a Ph.D. student of
Caiia,  School of Computer Sciences and Communications, University of
Plymouth. 2003 Jahrmann/Moswitzer received an award of distinction at
Prix Ars Electronica and in 2004 at transmediale Berlin.
  http://www.ludic.priv.at/

---> Christian McCrea is a writer and theorist from Melbourne,
Australia.His work describes the non-virtual aspects of games under
the rubric  of materialism, namely nostalgia, euphoria, the proscenium
of gaming  actions and explosive body aesthetics. He works as Lecturer
in Games  and Interactivity at Swinburne University of Technology.
  http://www.wolvesevolve.com

---> Max Moswitzer specializes in 3D simulations and artistic server
design, Dozent at the Game Design Department of the University of Arts
  and Design Zurich and the University for Applied Arts in Vienna.
Moswitzer co-founded Konsum.net in 1995 and regularly produces
interactive applications, online installations, videos and telematic
performances
http://max.sil.at/

---> Julian Oliver is a New Zealand born artist, free-software
developer,  teacher and writer based in Madrid, Spain. Julian has
given numerous  workshops, exhibitions and papers worldwide. In 1998
he established  the artistic game-development collective, Select
Parks.
  http://julianoliver.com

---> Melinda Rackham is Director of ANAT, Australia's leading cultural
  organisation generating new creativities which bridge science,
research, art, industry and culture. She dabbled extensively in
multi-user online environments and has an abiding interest in
playfulness.
  http://www.subtle.net

  ---> Melanie Swalwell is currently developing a suite of projects on
the  history of digital games in New Zealand, with essays published in
the  Journal of Visual Culture and Vectors, and forthcoming in
Ludologica  Retro and Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader.
  http://melanieswalwell.backpackit.com/pub/1284142

---> David Surman is Senior Lecturer in Computer Games Design at the
Newport School of Art, Media and Design in the green hills of Wales.He
blogs about technology, sexuality, gaming and popular culture at
http://www.gaygamer.net.


warm regards,
Melinda

++++++++++++
Dr Melinda Rackham
Executive Director
Australian Network for Art and Technology
+61 (0)8 8231 9037
+61 (0)410 596 592
http://www.anat.org.au
director at anat.org.au

Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) is generously  
supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council,  
its arts funding and advisory body, the South Australian Government  
through Arts SA, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an  
initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.