Aesthetics of Game
27.1.2023
Lecture and presentation
on computer games and art
Hiroshi Yoshida, scholar in aesthetics analyses modern digital games as “play,” one of the universal human activities, and in the context of “toy,” a traditional form of playthings, whereas Jérémie Cortial, artist, shows his practice of creating an original “game” with physical materials and action. Where are we taken by playing games with their rules and interaction?
Coordinated by Yuka Tokuyama
1. Lecture:
Game and Its Open Borderline:
Play, Toy, Sport and/or Art
Computer games have become a common leisure activity among the people since its appearance in the 1980s. What is happening behind the screen? – It could be a tool for exploring an adventure and/ or a playground where you gather with others.
Hiroshi Yoshida, scholar in aesthetics, will unravel different levels of perception and practices behind the act of gaming by examining the logic of “play” and “game.” Thus the thought would be drawn to its proximity to the art or not.
Dr. Hiroshi Yoshida is Associate Professor at the Department of Aesthetics, the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, the University of Tokyo; he is also working as visiting professor at Leipzig University since 2017. He has published extensively on aesthetics, musicology, and game studies in both Western and Asian languages. While working at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto (2008-2018), he established and initiated the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies.
2. Presentation:
Games to make games
Jérémie Cortial, artist who works on drawings, performance and computer games with a unique cross-disciplinary approach, will present his artworks – hybrid creations mixing computer games, hand drawings and physical world. In exhibitions or workshops, using low-tech and high-tech alongside joyful colours and materials, his work invites visitors/ participants to take an action – draw, play, eat, or else.
Cortial says, “I’m attached to minimal aesthetics, which require a natural imagination effort, and make identification easier. However, interaction in digital games as a medium can take us elsewhere” – and he questions, “can we deviate game interactions to social interactions outside of the screen?”
Jérémie Cortial is an artist based in Lyon.
Artist and inventor, Jérémie Cortial’s work connects virtuality and materiality through a unique practice of drawing with his character Chienpo. The artist co-created the emblematic Flippaper with Roman Miletitch, which turns any drawings into a playable pinball. Co-founder of the art collective Elshopo, the laboratory for serigraphy in 2001, he has been exploring the production of multiples from chocolate screen prints on pancakes to experimental video games. In 2018 he started Cosmodule, an art and R&D lab aiming to build a space station for artists. Playing on the border of art, entertainment, DIY and research, his works are always pop and visual, yet the public is often deeply involved in the process.
Coordinated by Yuka Tokuyama
Mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Behörde für Kultur und Medien Hamburg / Liebelt Stiftung