Mexico City, Seoul, Boston, Jakarta, São Paulo, Novosibirsk, Athens, and Bangkok: for eight game jams all over the world, ART GAMES united programmers and game developers as well as artists and creatives. Drawing from their diversity, they developed (digital) games which renegotiate the boundaries between art, politics, and games. How can artistic strategies expand the scope of games or transcend the limits of game designs? What are the underlying politics of the gaming industry? And how can game practices be used to challenge and advance political processes?
A selection of games from each location, chosen by a jury, will be exhibited at the international A MAZE. / Berlin Festival from April 25 to 29, 2018. Participants and partners from eight countries will travel to Germany to metamorphose the global virtual network of ART GAMES into an analogue one.
Additionally, a documentary film about the project, “Art, Games, Politics,” will premiere at the festival featuring highlights of the game jams at each location and exploring the mind-sets of the game creators.
SAVE THE DATES
April 25, 2018
ART GAMES - Panel at Quo Vadis
Station Berlin / Luckenwalder Str. 4-6 / 10963 Berlin
Opening A MAZE. / Berlin Festival
Urban Spree / Revaler Strasse 99 / 10245 Berlin
April 26, 2018
ART GAMES – Panel at A MAZE. / Berlin Festival
Urban Spree / Revaler Strasse 99 / 10245 Berlin
ART GAMES is a project of the Goethe-Institut in cooperation with Maschinen-Mensch and is sponsored by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.
A MAZE. / Berlin Festival is an international festival focusing on the art and culture of games and playful media. A MAZE. / Berlin Festival invites the general public to experience inspiring talks and workshops, four nights of music, and a life changing exhibition.
A MAZE. Festival
© Pablo Francisco Montes Romero
circled. is an experimental abstract game which criticizes how we approach interpersonal relationships and explores social issues, such as rejection, social adaptation, social pressure, personality shifts, identity loss, and destructive behaviours. How much are you willing to compromise to be part of a group? Is it fair to sacrifice our identity for the sake of social adaptation?
© TEAM SS
In SunShine, players will encounter an extremely incomplete utopia, a virtual reality space. Unlike mainstream game designs, the graphics in this game are not cute but cool and violent. It presents a platform on which every unit is closely interconnected to form an utopia on a virtual planet. Build your own utopia, let it flourish and protect it!
© Myung-jin Yang , Youngjoo Yoo, Ga-young An, Jaemin Park, Deokwon Kim
2984 Little Brother is set a thousand years after George Orwell's 1984. After humans have destroyed the Earth, some escaped to a planet called Utopia. The Utopia Union comprises many tribes who named themselves ‘Little Brothers'. A direct democracy is at work and citizens participate in politics through nine interactive ‘telescreens’. You are one of the Little Brothers. What does your utopia look like?
© Jeff Campbell, Aslanta Chen, Joe Marchuk, Dan Williams
Every choice entails a hidden cost in the consequences that we have to bear for making it. However, we are uncapable of ever predicting the outcome and foreseeing our destiny, as everything we have and everything we know is always tied to the present. We are forced to make these choices blindly. Some would say that’s unfair, but we would say: That's the joy of the ride.
© timbell
Babel-o-Rama experiments with the format of multiplayer games on a mobile platform. Three or more players can join to solve word puzzles together. Their shared dictionary will continuously expand by cooperation and teamwork.
© Team Choo-Choose
Every choice entails a hidden cost in the consequences that we have to bear for making it. However, we are uncapable of ever predicting the outcome and foreseeing our destiny, as everything we have and everything we know is always tied to the present. We are forced to make these choices blindly. Some would say that’s unfair, but we would say: That's the joy of the ride.
© Saranpat Sereewiwattana
Make It Rain criticises corruptive systems by provoking its players to corrupt their opponents. Inspired by true events, players are prompted to rain money on police officers and the military in order to get away with the crimes committed. In this way, it sheds light on the fragility of legal systems in the face of financial fortunes.
© Tasos Protopapas, Michalis Lygiaris, Kiprianos Skafidas, Haralabos Andrianidis
Status is an analogue game that explores the relations between politics and people. The basic idea is derived from the limited nature of resources as well as the notion of ‘status’ as a measuring unit within society. As a player, you have to overtake others in order to secure your own place in the social system. In doing so, this game questions hierarchical structures, economical positions and ethics in a position of power.
© Christina Chrysanthopoulou
Cacophony is a virtual reality experience that explores the importance of forming opinions independently and the complexity of freedom of speech. As a conductor of a choir of disparate voices, the responsibility to navigate and guide the flow of information becomes evident as well as the state of perversion of truth that results from living within one's secluded, personal bubble of information.
