gameZ & ruleZ

We are back with a new edition of the conference on «Gamez & ruleZ» and are able to present some exciting international speakers to you. This year, the conference on «Gamez & ruleZ» sets the focus on Digital Biedermeier.

The «Toni Areal» in real or if you want to virtually walk through the toni-areal as a game: you can do this on toniz.ch  a subversive version of the ToniAreal. Meet godzilla, a lot of pixel art and how students imagine the university should look like.

This years topic: Digital Biedermeier in Arts and Culture

In recent years, especially during and after the Covid pandemic, images, film, design and, above all, game worlds have emerged that promise an ideal world. As once in the Biedermeier era, people seem to retreat into beautiful little lovely worlds with actions free of any politics. In the game sector, this has led to the genres like Cozy Games or Wholesome Games. These games have been doing the rounds for a few years. They celebrate relaxation, seclusion and nostalgia.

Is this an apolitical and non-reflective, even reactionary, view of the world in current game design? Is it rather used as a clever or cynical meta-perspective, as a mirror reflection of the (post?)-pandemic world?

What is at the core of this fascinating phenomenon and what are the implications for our society, that obviously needs this kind of digital seclusion? And how do we understand these phenomena in design, culture and politics?

These and other questions will be addressed in the two-day conference «gameZ & ruleZ — Mechanics of Digital Biedermeier in Games and Culture» on October 19 and 20, 2023. Our conference connects this recent phenomenon (and genre) with cultural, political, and community-building research questions and builds a bridge between game design and academic approaches for a fruitful analysis of a surprisingly modern complex of topics.