Stories in Digital Media (SIDM) was a blog run by a few students and the professor Frieder Nake, part of the former Digital Media programme in the state of Bremen, Germany. By the end of the first decade of the millennium, the web and digital technology were advancing at an unprecedented pace in the social and artistic sphere. Developments were exciting, and we kept a log of some events and took time to reflect.

What you see here is a rendition of the content as it was back then, in a different, static archival representation. Enjoy this glimpse into a hopeful and exciting past.

Stuff that may be relevant for the Digital Media programme in Bremen.

Through the night with Chris Crawford and Jason Rohrer

· Andre Hoffmann · in Culture Design Rant
Two eccentric game designers talk about - what else? - game design. English with German subtitles @ arte+7, available only a few days!

3 Comments

  1. drnn1076
    if you haven't try it: Passage
  2. drnn1076
    Everything is derivative. At this point Crawford sounded quite Baudrillardean, because he actually talks about the endless unfolded of instances over and over. Now, here he uses that to criticise the lack of 'clever' innovation in the game industry and some sort of nostalgia for old approaches. Another aspect that caught my attention was the mention to the imposition of one style of video game. First that one about the the control of the physical input and the explosion of 3D fancy graphics, neither interactive in Crawford's opinion. It seems to me that video games, as happened to cinema, are cursed to be dominated by only one form of consumption and style. Everything that is perceived should serve the purpose of the media! Wow, if taken to the letter in contemporary film making, sound (music) or video games we might have something like the Modernity's strikes back. Nevertheless, I think contemporary media entertainment is much more closer to a neo-baroque aesthetic, that one in which we appreciate and enjoy more the technical excess than the austerity. And video games as technological products have been always a neo-baroque form.
  3. admin
    But why so? Why do we (whoever feels spoken to) need this technical excess? On the one hand, we have the creator who really tries to develop an impressive coat of effects. He learned from the movies he saw in Cinema when he was young and imagined the possibilities. In fact, computer games try to adopt to a popcorn cinematic aesthetic since, this I can remember, Wing Commander III or Rebel Assault. I think the question is why we tend to create this baroque presentation in general, let it be movies or games. My personal view is, on the other hand, our urge for distraction. And that distraction must be louder and brighter what we are used to consume in our everyday lives. It must emerge our minds, we leave the play to the game, its the game that controls us.

Comments are closed for this archived post.