[hackerspaces] Arse Elektronika 2012: 4 PLAY / Schedule online

[j. grenzfurthner/monochrom (das ende der nahrungskette)]

Arse Elektronika 2012: 4 PLAY

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monochrom's Conference on sex, technology, games, and culture.

http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika

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Talks, machines, games, workshops and performances.
September 27-30 in San Francisco, USA.

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Gaming, like sex, is a human cultural practice of apparent frivolity. 
Yet both afford surprisingly deep levels of analysis. How might 
models of critical gameplay inspire deeper critical reflection on 
issues of sex, and vice-versa?

What is the history of sexual games, particularly in the pre-digital 
era? What were the fairground and peepshow precursors in titillation? 
What was the design history of the "love tester" machine?

Why are game metaphors so prevalent in narratives of sexual conquest, 
and how did popular games in history influence the thinking of 
contemporary lovers? What can we learn about Roman gaming culture 
from Ovid's Ars Amatoria? What determines the many definitions of 
"cheating" in each of those contexts? How do the procedural rhetorics 
of modern game design encourage objectification of women?

How might contemplative gaming teach us to free ourselves from the 
tyranny of the climax?
How does the concept of the 'magic circle' in games coincide with 
safe spaces for sexual exploration? How do players act out 
transgressions of sex and gender expectations within the relatively 
safer spaces of games? What can we learn about social scripts and 
expectations from looking at society through a ludological lens?

What is the relationship of sex and games to the recent 'non-human 
turn' in arts, science, and philosophy? How might games engender 
empathy and understanding towards the non-human? What is the 
technological equivalent of Alan Moore's plant-sex issue of Swamp 
Thing? Could a game help you contemplate how a mantis fucks, or what 
it feels like for a fern to spore?

Beyond the simple human-to-human interfaces of the now-almost-quaint 
developments of sex machines and teledildonic, how might game design 
interact with biometrics and haptic feedback to create entirely new 
techno-sexual situations?  Game-based learning and medical 
rehabilitation has been used in the past for stroke victims and the 
disabled to re-learn their bodies; how might those same techniques 
allow further bodily exploration towards positive pleasure? How much 
might BDSM simulators borrow from virtual pet trainers? How is 
predicament bondage like game design, and what can the two learn from 
one another?

If we are headed towards the 'gamepocalypse' envisioned by Jesse 
Schell, how might that affect our sex lives and our sexualities?

Is sex in danger of gamification?

If so, how can we stop it?

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http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika