videogames | studio any

The Architectural Continuum: Choropoietic media and post-physical-world spatial aesthetics

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 10:00:03 +0300

Workshop organized by Marc Bonner, DFG fellow at Universität zu Köln.

Event description

The international conference will be held in context of the DFG funded research project “Open-World-Structures: Architecture, City- and Landscape in Computer Games” (Bonner 2017-2020) and addresses the matter of (1) architecture in game worlds in the sense of its media specific spatialization, architectural layouts and the role of architecture, as well as (2) the architecture of computer games themselves in the sense of systematics, structures and media specific logics between algorithms and databases – worldbuilding from a different angle.

Thus, the participants will thematise aesthetics of reception as well as aesthetics of production and approach the complex constitution of computer games from a wide range of disciplines – from Media and Game Studies to Art History, Sound Studies to Architecture, Design to Phenomenology and Embodiment, as well as Spatial Theory and Cultural Studies.

The aim of the conference is to channel multi-disciplinary approaches and current research projects to fuel an interest towards an understanding of computer games as spatial, architectural or world phenomena within the current digital media culture. Furthermore, it is to explore and discuss concepts and methodologies from other disciplines and the potential transfer as useful tools in Game Studies.

Workshop programme

Monday, 03/18/19

Distant Agricultural Splendor: National Identity, Agricultural Labor, and Space in Farming Simulator (Derek Price) 10:45 a.m.
Taking a Breath of the Wild – Paidiatic Spaces and Practices Off the Ludic Grid (Cornelia Janina Schnaars) 11:05 a.m.
Feels Right – How Atmospheres of the Past Satisfy Expectations of Authenticity (Felix Zimmermann) 11:25 a.m.
Virtual Space and Video Game Photography: Towards a Socio-Political Reading of In-Game Photography (Vladimir Rizov) 12:00 p.m.
The World Machine: Self-Reflexive Worldmaking in OneShot (Theresa Krampe) 12:20 p.m.
Towards an Operationalized Definition of Procedural Representation (Michal Švarný) 12:40 p.m.

Welcoming Speech / Introduction (Marc Bonner) 1:30 p.m.
Protean Spaces. On the Aesthetics of Reconfiguring Game Spaces (Hans-Joachim Backe) 2:00 p.m.
Learning from Las Vegas … About Video Games and Virtual Reality Experiences (Gundolf S. Freyermuth) 2:45 p.m.
Labyrinth (Rolf F. Nohr) 3:45 p.m.
Personal and Cinematic Landscapes in Games (Rune Klevjer) 4:30 p.m.
Ludoforming (Espen Aarseth) 5:30 p.m.

Tuesday, 03/19/19

Borderless Sound (Marcus Erbe) 10:00 a.m.
»I love how you can see the bottom of the universe from this room…« The Inside-Out-Architecture of Davey Wreden’s The Beginner’s Guide (Benjamin Beil) 11:00 a.m.
The Interior of Video Games (Thomas Hensel) 11:45 a.m.
Two Ways to Dwell: Hestial and Hermetic Dwelling in Digital Game Worlds (Daniel Vella) 1:30 p.m.
The ‘Lived Spaces’ of Computer Games (Stephan Günzel) 2:15 p.m.
Sense of Being Here: 3D Spaces Between Vision and Haptics (Carolin Höfler) 3:15 p.m.
The Architectural Continuum – Choropoietic Media and Post-Physical-World Spatial Aesthetics (Constantinos Miltiadis) 4:00 p.m.
Dreaming in the Witch House (Thomas Hawranke) 4:45 p.m.
Round Up Discussion 5:45 p.m.

Virtual Reality, Videogames, Architecture and Education - From utopian drawings to inconstructible navigable environments

Sat, 01 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Miltiadis, Constantinos. ‘Virtual Reality, Videogames, Architecture and Education. From Utopian Drawings to Inconstructible Navigable Environments’. In Computing for a Better Tomorrow - Proceedings of the 36th ECAADe Conference, edited by A Kepczynska-Walczak and S Bialkowski, 2:815–24. Lodz, Poland: Lodz University of Technology, 2018. http://papers.cumincad.org/cgi-bin/works/paper/ecaade2018_366.

The Architectural Continuum

Sat, 09 Jun 2018 09:30:00 +0000

Event description

Space – in particular architectural and urban space – is always both real and virtual. For human beings, space is a construct of its perception via the body, but it is also culturally and socially determined as “relational space.” Architectural and urban spaces are inherently shaped by human beings: by their senses, by their perception, and by their cultural and social bonds. We experience these spaces as “real” and contingent, despite all possible false perceptions that might deceive us. They are an extension of our body – as well as related to the neurological, embodied mind – and are tied to its limitations.

While traditional forms of virtuality such as movies and literature can only partially overcome these ties and boundaries – bound as they are to sight, sound, or our sense of fantasy – new digital tools and forms of immersive virtuality can reveal new orders of experience, allowing an interaction with this space. This interaction even partially allows one to design this space. At least one is either asked to perform tasks – play – or can replicate reality via simulation.

At the latest at this point, one must question the nature of the relationship between “virtual reality” and “reality,” in particular regarding the experience and the design of space, and thus in relation to architecture. Is the designed virtual space a metaphor for real space and thus only a translation of it into virtual space, or is it more than that? Perhaps a transformation or extension of it? And what is different between these two, if there are any differences?

The term “architectonics” (Architektonik) refers to the structure and nature of this space and thus to the threshold between architecture, either as system and structure or process. As such, architecture is either a metaphor (as discussed by Kant) – e.g. software-architecture – or a design process, with inherent methods and a specific spatial knowledge, which can be applied to the construction of virtual space.

Architecture and town planning are disciplines based on design that create real and virtual spaces: rooms, buildings, towns, worlds. The process of design itself has always comprised a “virtual space” spanning the contingency of reality, with all its restrictions: the act of design itself – between making and thinking – and the implementation of the project in a real context, with a constant feedback loop between these different stages. The introduction of computers in the design process in the 1990s has significantly extended this space and created new and closer connections between reality and virtuality, which have only recently started to transform architecture and the act of design through algorithms and “design to production.”

This “virtual space” of design has two implications for our discussion: on the one hand, despite decades of investigations via design theory, it remains a terra incognita, which reflects the Janus-faced nature of architecture between art and science; on the other, architecture and urbanism have traditionally fetishized this virtual space of the project – as utopia – not least because of the many oppositions to its ideals by clients, politics, costs, and so forth.

This raises two questions that we would like to address in this round table/conference: Starting from these concurrent virtual spaces – architecture/video games/simulations – what can architecture learn from new virtual realities, in terms of its nature and of the act of design, and what can be the specific contribution of architecture both to the design of virtual spaces and their understanding? What can thus the contribution of architects to this new order of the virtual be, in the field of video games – including the aspects of gaming and narration – , serious games, or in the field of simulations, which allow for measurement and prediction (e.g. smart cities)? Can the architect apply their specific spatial abilities and the capacity to construct narratives around projects in this virtual context? And inversely, what can architecture and urbanism learn from this new virtual reality in all of its implications? Is there something of the design of virtual spaces in games or simulations that can be implemented in architecture and urbanism, in order to improve its efficiency or its sustainability, as well as to better understand the processes and nature of design?

In the end, we must ask ourselves if the ubiquity of this virtual order represents a danger for architecture and urbanism, ushering in greater distance to the human “body” and “society,” for whom architecture has traditionally been constructed. Will these disciplines reduce their social and cultural impact through building virtual utopias, in which human beings and social ties will be simulated or mimicked – and thus lost? And is this euphoria for the potential of digital technologies not leading us again to naïve optimism, which in turn distracts us from real problems and leads architecture and urbanism to further abstraction from “reality?”

We would like to address these questions in a lively discussion with experts from different fields, most of whom hold a degree in architecture. Besides seven invited speakers, there are two more positions open to individuals with different disciplinary backgrounds – game theory, philosophy, architecture, history of technology, etc. – interested in these questions and ideally with a background in architecture. These will be selected via an open call for papers.

Organization: Andri Gerber, Institute Urban Landscape, ZHAW Winterthur, in collaboration with Werner Oechslin, Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin.

Event Programme

Andri Gerber (Institute Urban Landscape, ZHAW)
Welcome/Introduction

Stefano Gualeni (University of Malta)
BIG TROUBLE in Little Cities

Ekim Tan (Play the City)
City Gaming

James Delaney (BlockWorks)
Architectonic of Virtual Space

Luke Caspar Pearson (Bartlett School of Architecture)
Videogame Urbanism: rethinking speculative architecture projects through the design of virtual game spaces

Stephan Günzel (University of Applied Sciences Europe)
The ‘Lived Spaces’ of Computer Games

Ulrich Götz (Zurich University of the Arts, ZHdK)
The Design of Game Spaces, Caught Between Demands of the Virtual and References to the Real

Philipp Schaerer (www.philippschaerer.ch)
Built Images. Experimental and visual compositional techniques

Nicole Stoecklmayr (scenesofarchitecture.com)
Parallel Perspectives: Experiencing Architecture on Screens

Constantinos Miltiadis (TU Graz)
The Architectural Continuum

Final discussion
Johannes Binotto (HSLU)
Philippe Koch (Institute Urban Landscape, ZHAW)
Amadeo Sarbach (ZHAW)

Werner Oechslin (Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin)
Guided visit through the library