Dynamiken virtueller Kommunikationsräume | Astrid Ensslin

Ausgehend vom Begriff der "Kritik", beschäftigen wir uns im Blockseminar
mit Theorien des Critical Media-Designs und dessen praktischer
Umsetzung. Wir werden auf diesem Weg auch Web- &
Socialmedia-Konzepte entwerfen, diskutieren und planen. Dabei geht es
vor allem darum alltägliche Mediengewohnheiten und -praktiken zu
erkennen und spielerisch zu unterwandern: Z.B. Blickregime im Film und
Comic, Othering und Ableismus, Rassismus in Web und Social Media und
binäres Geschlechterdenken im Design von Icons. Ein Reader für die Texte
wird ab 15.04.24 auf Grips zur Vorbereitung zugänglich sein.

This
Hauptseminar introduces you to video games as cultural spaces and as
platforms for developing intercultural understanding and competence. We
will examine how games communicate cultural meanings through
medium-specific multimodality and intercultural pedagogy; we will engage
with theories of critical play and postcolonial game analysis, with the
goal to develop the critical tools to analyze and evaluate videogames
with respect to processes and means of appropriation, essentializing,
stereotyping, and othering. At the same time, we will examine the
economic dictates and constraints underlying commercial game design,
that inform medium-specific aesthetics. We will engage with regional and
ethnic game studies by studying a range of digital narratives from and
about diverse regional and ethnic communities, including Bavaria and
Indigenous cultures. We will examine how games communicate historical,
social and cultural values and concerns, and how they might contribute
to the decolonizing of game design and game studies. Through a variety
of critical and creative assignments and activities, we will work
towards developing a critical, interculturally literate attitude towards
gameplay and game design. For their final assignment, students can
choose between scholarly essay and creative design document.

Written and designed by a studio around Estonian novelist Robert Kurvitz, Disco Elysium (ZA/UM 2019) has received ubiquitous praise amongst critics and scholars alike and been named one of the ten most important games of the 2010s (Gault 2019). Its canonical status derives from its innovative approach to ludic storytelling, audiovisual art and complex character design, but also from its distinctly localized development context, which makes it a prime example of local games history and of World Games as an emergent subdiscipline of both Critical Game Studies and Digital Area Studies. 

In this block seminar, each student will adopt one particular philosophical, ludonarratological, hermeneutic, linguistic, discourse analytical, literary, Media, Cultural and/or Area Studies approach to analyzing the game and develop their own projects via critical co-play, presentation, student-led workshopping and an end-of-term essay. A key reference will be Tom Apperley and Anna Ozimek’s (2021) open access special issue of Baltic Screen Media Review on Disco Elysium. 

Students admitted to the course are expected to have completed a full playthrough of the game (i.e. 20-30 hours' time investment) by our first class on 19th January.

References:

• Apperley, Tom and Anna Ozimek (eds) (2021) Disco Elysium. Baltic Screen Media Review, 9. https://sciendo.com/issue/bsmr/9/1
• Gault, Matthew (2019) “The Ten Best Video games of the 2010s”. Time, Dec 19. https://time.com/5752663/best-video-games-2010s-decade/.
• ZA/UM (2019) Disco Elysium. https://store.steampowered.com/app/632470/Disco_Elysium__The_Final_Cut/ (regular price: EUR 40 - you're advised to bookmark the game and wait for a considerable discount at the next Steam sale)

In diesem Seminar mit eher einführendem Charakter werden wir uns aktuellen und „klassischen“ Videospieltheorien nähern, sie diskutieren und in der Praxis erproben. Einleitend mit der Verflechtung von Ludologie und Narratologie beschäftigen wir uns mit Performance- und Genre-Theorien, Raum/Zeit-Konzepten und dem Begriff des „Point of Action“. Ziel ist die Theorie direkt in die Analyse exemplarischer Spiele zu übertragen und in Form von Videoessays, Web-Blogs, Audiobeiträgen, Entscheidungsbäumen, audiovisuellen Partituren oder multimedialen Protokollen anschaulich zu machen. Voraussetzung ist die Bereitschaft, auch englischsprachige Texte zu lesen.