EVENT: MARIO VON RICKEBACH (MAY 6 2021)

MAY 6 2021/6 MAGGIO 2021

17:00 - 18:00

Online event

Università IULM, Via Carlo Bo, 1 20143 Milan

INTERACTIVE ANIMATION

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Mario von Rickenbach designs and develops games with a focus on visually-driven interaction. His approach emphasizes the intuitive physicality of interactions over deep and challenging game mechanics. In this talk, Mario will give some insights into different aspects of making his most celebrated projects, with a focus on interactive animation. He will share with the audience a series of insights about inspirations, techniques, design approaches, and the unpredictable reality of releasing his projects on commercial video game distribution channels.

Mario von Rickenbach is a Swiss game designer and developer. His award-winning works include the games KIDS, Plug & Play, Mirage, Krautscape, Dreii and Rakete. He studied game design at the University of the Arts in Zurich and co-founded Playables, a production company for peculiar projects. Next to his creative practice, he’s teaching interaction design at the University of Art and Design in Lausanne (ECAL).

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ANIMAZIONE INTERATTIVA

LINGUA: INGLESE

Mario von Rickenbach progetta e sviluppa videogiochi caratterizzati da una peculiare interazione visiva. L'artista e designer svizzero esplora la fisicità intuitiva dell'interazione anziché sviluppare meccaniche di gioco elaborate e impegnative. Mario illustrerà i principi guida che informano la creazione delle sue opere più famose, descrivendo, in particolare, la nozione di animazione interattiva. Condividerà ispirazioni, tecniche, approcci progettuali e offrirà consigli legati ai — sempre più imprevedibili e dinamici — canali di distribuzione.

Mario von Rickenbach è un game designer e sviluppatore svizzero. Tra le sue opere spiccano i pluripremiati videogiochi KIDS, Plug & Play, Mirage, Krautscape, Dreii e Rakete. Ha studiato game design all'Università delle Arti di Zurigo e ha co-fondato Playables, uno studio di produzione per progetti fuori dagli schemi. Oltre alla sua pratica creativa, insegna Interaction Design all'Università di Arte e Design di Losanna (ECAL).

PHOTOS: KIERAN NOLAN'S GAME TALK #4

ON APRIL 17 2019, KIERAN NOLAN DISCUSSED THE AESTHETICS OF RETROGAMING AT IULM UNIVERSITY PROVING THAT MODDING AND HACKING ARE BEAUTIFUL ACTIVITIES.

See more photos of Kieran’s talk here.

NEWS: GAME TALK #4: KIERAN NOLAN (APRIL 14 2019)

GET READY FOR KIERAN NOLAN’S TALK ABOUT THE AESTHETICS OF VIDEO GAMES!

On Wednesday April 14, artist-researcher, indie-game designer, and academic Kieran Nolan will deliver an alternative primer in game aesthetics. Videogames are technologically mediated aesthetic experiences, with the communicative link between player and game shaped by the affordances and constraints of the host platform, the interface type used, and the game environment, in terms of the situated space of the player, as well as the inner space of the game world itself. Exemplars of breakthroughs in game aesthetics spanning game design history will be discussed, from retro through to current generation platforms. Kieran will also present his ongoing series of game based experiments in arcade interface aesthetics. These works explore themes including interface constraints, materiality, and user context, combining to form a self-reflexive, experiential composite overview of the arcade interface. For gamers, makers, hackers, artists and dreamers. 

Admission is free. Click here to register.

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Mercoledì 14 aprile, l’artista-ricercatore, designer indipendente e accademico Kieran Nolan presenterà una storia alternativa dell’estetica videoludica. La tesi portante è che i videogiochi sono esperienze audiovisive immersive e tecnologicamente mediate. La relazione tra gioco e giocatore dipende da tre fattori: costi e caratteristiche tecniche della piattaforma; l’interfaccia e l'ambiente ludico, inteso sia come lo spazio situato del giocatore, sia come spazio del mondo videoludico. Nolan illustra come il concetto di estetica videoludica si è evoluto, delineando una traiettoria che parte dalle piattaforme vintage e giunge alla generazione attuale. Nolan presenterà i suoi progetti sperimentali nell’ambito delle modifiche delle interfacce arcade, che tematizzano aspetti quali l’interazione, la materialità e il contesto di fruizione, creando un mosaico complesso, auto-riflessivo ed esperienziale sull’evoluzione dei coin-op. Per gamers, makers, hackers, artisti e sognatori.

L’ingresso è gratuito, la registrazione necessaria.

EVENT: PROFESSOR NOLAN'S NEW PRESENTATION AND PAPER

Professor Kieran Nolan (GAME AESTHETICS) shares his slides from a recent talk about the JAMMA arcade platform as used by bootleggers, artists, and indie game designers. He also shares a short paper titled 'Indie Game and Media Art Exhibition Spaces as Interface Layers’, which explores the human computer interface of his experimental indie game Control was augmented through five different exhibitions across both new media art and indie game spaces. Interface elements considered include the tangible control input type, the style of visual display used, as well as the situated space of the game installation itself. The paper was presented at CHI PLAY '17.

KIERAN NOLAN JOINS THE FACULTY

We are delighted to announce that Kieran Nolan has joined the faculty and he will be teaching GAME AESTHETICS.

Kieran Nolan is an artist-researcher, indie-game designer, and academic. He is a lecturer with the Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music at Dundalk Institute of Technology, where he is Programme Director of the BA in Media Arts and Technologies and the BA (Hons) in Communications and Creative Multimedia, and co-organiser of the Picteilín Creative Media and Games Studies Conference. Kieran is also a PhD candidate in Digital Arts and Humanities with the Graphics Vision and Visualisation group at Trinity College, Dublin. His PhD research explores the aesthetic, material and connective properties of the arcade videogame interface. Kieran’s research work has been published at conferences and exhibitions worldwide, including Vector Game Art and New Media Festival (Toronto), The Science Gallery (Dublin), Eurogamer Expo (London), Future and Reality of Gaming/F.R.O.G. (Vienna), International Symposium of Electronic Art /ISEA (Belfast, Hong Kong), ZIL Cultural Centre (Moscow), the A MAZE. International Independent Video Games Festival (Berlin), METEOR (Tokyo), MAKE (Cork), Transmediale (Berlin), Art.CHI (Seoul), Game On! El arte en juego (Buenos Aires), and Playing The Game (Milan).

Among his games are Arcade Operator (2017)

And Control (2015)

Read more about Kieran Nolan's games and project here.