GameCulture
Video and computer games have become an integral part of our everyday culture.The aesthetics of video games are closely linked to contemporary visual and performing arts. [dated August 2010]
Computers have become both a principal tool in our working life and one of our favourite toys. Games are now an integral feature in the daily life of a growing number of people from a broad social spectrum. The market is booming, the games industry has proved resilient to all forms of crisis so far and has, in fact, advanced to the cultural industry with the highest turnover. and the number of those involved in the creation of the associated, increasingly complex digital worlds is also on the rise. Game producers nowadays are clients for artists from a variety of disciplines – graphic designers, script writers, composers and others.
The ever closer link between the world of computer games on the one hand and visual arts, music and film on the other makes the involvement of cultural promotion institutions inevitable. UNESCO has recognised computer and video games as a cultural industry and acknowledged the contribution they make to cultural diversity. In France, Germany and the Nordic states, video games have been on the cultural agenda for a long while already.
Computer games as art form
Similar to television and cinema two or three generations back, computer games are faced with the generic suspicion of being nothing more than trash and a mindless diversion for children and childish adults. Gamers and non-gamers find it hard to understand each other’s attitude. There is a sharp generational divide. Public debate tends to be more emotional than factual, with the focus mostly on addiction and the depiction of violence. Few non-gamers realise that there is a diversity of genres in computer games similar to that of feature films.
Through its GameCulture programme, Pro Helvetia aims to raise public awareness and understanding of the wealth and complexity inherent in this new medium. GameCulture agenda Computer games will be in the spotlight from autumn 2010 to 2012 at three exhibitions and various panel discussions at conferences and festivals.
For more information click here
Visit by Pierre Thomé, Hochschule Luzern – Design & Kunst
Visit by Swiss illustrator Pierre Thomé, Head Illustration, Hochschule Luzern – Design & Kunst. [dated August 2010]
Swiss illustrator Pierre Thomé, Head Illustration, Hochschule Luzern – Design & Kunst will be visiting India to represent Switzerland at Jumpstart 2010 as well as to conduct workshops at Jamia Millia Islamia and National Institute of Design. Ahmedabad. The Jumpstart Series is being organised by the German Book Office. Workshops and seminars organised will look at all aspects of publishing, writing and illustrating children’s books.
> JUMPSTART 2010: Joining the dots
Delhi: 20-21 August 2010
Venue: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts
Ahmedabad: 23 – 24 August 2010
Venue: National Institute of Design
> Add-on workshops on illustration with Indian partner Orijit Sen Visual essay - workshop /The illustrator as author to be conducted jointly by Pierre Thomé and Orijit Sen Delhi: 17, 18 & 19 August 2010 Venue: AJKMCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia Ahmedabad: 25, 26 & 27 August 2010 Venue: National Institute of Design
Partners:
German Book Office
National Institute of Design
AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Milia Islamia
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What is illustration?
To me, illustration speaks the silent voice of beauty, accompanying a text or commenting on it through the vibrant fabric of patterns, structures and rhythm. A playful symbiosis of mysteries and meanings – of what you understand and what you feel. (Following the drama unfolding along lines and contrasts, our mind leaps easily from abstraction to realism).
After half a life spent in illustration, and lately teaching illustration, I see pictures as a language and our role as illustrators as that of a translator. (Everybody can enjoy pictures, looking comes naturally to the curious mind, but to be a successful artist requires a relentless search for perfection). I don’t care about style but take great pains to find the appropriate tone for each audience, to give every story its unique form. Starting from scratch, imagination should guide the hand in pleasant and unpredictable ways, but in the end – if you are looking for a distinctive voice of your own – perseverance and work will solve most problems. Life in illustration could be summed up in the last words of the great master Hokusai, when he claimed at the end of his career: „Just ten more years and perfection would be mine."
Pierre Thomé
Head, Illustration Hochschule Luzern – Design & Kunst
www.hslu.ch/design-kunst
Ms Meena to be staged at The Hindu Theatre Festival 2010
An adaptation of the tragicomedy, 'The Visit' by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the play has been directed by Rajiv Krishnan. [dated August 2010]
Pro Helvetia New Delhi and The Hindu, along with other partners
presents an adaptation of the tragicomedy
'The Visit' by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt.
Miss Meena
Directed by Rajiv Krishnan
Rangashankara, Bangalore
28 July 2010 - 1 August 2010 at 7: 30 pm.
Ms. Meena will be staged at The Hindu Metroplus Festival, 2010 on Saturday, 7 August 2010.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (5 January 1921 – 14 December 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire. Dürrenmatt was a member of the Gruppe Olten.
Dürrenmatt was born in Konolfingen, in the Emmental (canton of Bern). The family moved to Bern in 1935. Dürrenmatt began studies in philosophy and German language and literature at the University of Zurich in 1941, but moved to the University of Bern after one semester. In 1943, he decided to become an author and dramatist and dropped his academic career. In 1945-46, he wrote his first play It is written. Like Brecht, Dürrenmatt explored the dramatic possibilities of epic theater. His plays are meant to involve the audience in a theoretical debate, rather than act as purely passive entertainment.
His first play, It Is Written, premiered to great controversy. The story of the play revolves around a battle between a sensation-craving cynic and a religious fanatic who takes scripture literally, all of this taking place while the city they live in is under siege.
His first major success was the play Romulus the Great. Set in the year A.D. 476, the play explores the last days of the Roman Empire, presided over, and brought about by its last emperor.
The Visit (Der Besuch der alten Dame, 1956) is a grotesque fusion of comedy and tragedy that creates a superb dramaturgic effect. It is the work best known in the United States.
The satirical drama The Physicists (Die Physiker, 1962), which deals with issues concerning science and its responsibility for dramatic and even dangerous changes to our world, has also been presented in translation.
Radio plays published in English include Hercules in the Augean Stables (Herkules und der Stall des Augias, 1954), Incident at Twilight (Abendstunde im Spätherbst, 1952) and The Mission of the Vega (Das Unternehmen der Wega, 1954). The two late works "Labyrinth" and "Turmbau zu Babel" are a collection of unfinished ideas, stories, and philosophical thoughts.
NOW ONLINE - New Media Journal
India Habitat Centre's Arts Journal 2009 on New Media, with essays by Swiss and Indian leading theorists on New Media and co-edited by Dr Alka Pande and Dr. Nils Roeller can now be accessed online. [dated August 2010]
India Habitat Centre's Arts Journal 2009 on New Media, with essays by Swiss and Indian leading theorists on New Media and co-edited by Dr Alka Pande, Consultant Art Advisor and Curator at the Visual Arts Gallery and media theorist Dr. Nils Roeller, Professor for Media and Cultural Theory at the University of the Arts, Zürich, can now be accessed online.
India Habitat Centre's Arts Journal 2009 on New Media (pdf)
The India Habitat Centre’s Art Journal - 2009
Editors: Dr. Alka Pande, Prof. Dr. Nils Röller
Contents
Editorial
05 - Director’s Note: Raj Liberhan, IHC
06 - Note on Collaboration: Chandrika Grover Ralleigh, Head,
Pro Helvetia, India
07 - Curatorial Note: Dr. Alka Pande, IHC
09 - Editorial Note: Prof. Dr. Nils Röller, ZHDK
Essays
12 - The Fickleness of Novelty: Shuddhabrata Sengupta
17 - A reflection on perspective in art, science and digital media:
Karan Sher Singh
22 - Celebrating with anti-coagulants Ten Years of SHIBEN:
Abhishek Hazra
26 - Old Language in a New World: Alice Cicolini
31 - New Media Art and its Obsolete Present: Shukla Sawant
35 - New Media interventions from Bangalore: Suresh Jayaram
42 - The New Music of New Media in India: Shankar Barua
48 - The Way Things Go: Vilém Flusser
50 - Programmes as space for thought?: Tabea Lurk
65 - Variantology and Archaeology of the Media: Siegfried
Zielinski
67 - The Myth is the Message: Adrian Notz
74 - Media authorship: Giaco Schiesser
77 - HOME MADE and do-it-yourself: Dominik Landwehr
80 - The DACollection/DAStore project: Annette Schindler and
Reinhard Storz
82 - Building bridges: Peter Schneider
85 - Interview with Bob Bishop - A trend of computing
88 - Xcult.org - the Swiss internet platform: Reinhard Storz
90 - Public Art, Sociology, and the Theory of Art: Some
Preliminary Remarks: Christoph Schenker
93 - Not everything is predictable: Verena Kuni
98 - Copyright and Freedom of Art in the 21st Century:
Felix Stalder
101 - Swiss Knife of Communication: Nils Röller
Translator of German Essays: Ritu Khanna
Design:
Parthiv Shah
Centre for Media and Alternative Communication
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