Playful Materialities

An exploration of the intricate links between game culture and material culture, examining the objects of gaming and the playful phenomena that they create.

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization.

»Der Sammelband ist ein beeindruckendes Beispiel dafür, wie holistische Spieleforschung, die gängige Diskurse überdenkt und ausweitet, aussehen kann.«

Auteur
Benjamin Beil (Prof. Dr. phil.) is Professor for Media Studies & Digital Culture at the Department of Media Culture & Theatre at the University of Cologne.Gundolf S. Freyermuth (Prof. Dr. phil.) is Professor of Media and Game Studies and founding co-director at the Cologne Game Lab of TH Koeln-University of Technology, Arts and Sciences, as well as Professor of Comparative Media Studies at the ifs international film school of Cologne.Hanns Christian Schmidt is a professor for Game Design at Macromedia University for Applied Sciences (Cologne) and a research assistant at the Institute of Media Culture and Theater at the University of Cologne.