A MAZE. Interact 2012

The goal of the A MAZE. Interact Festival in Johannesburg in South Africa is to create an annual evolving platform for African and European media artists and game developers. A playground for everyone who wants to experience the Human-Human-Machine interaction. A MAZE. provides a six day program with lectures, panels, screenings, arcade, interactive installations, street games, workshops, concerts, performances and party.

From the website:

Conference: 

Focusing on the convergence of media art and games, a symposium provides the opportunity to present projects as well as to discuss and reflect upon games in the context of media theory. Lectures on the implications of games strengthen ties to the academic discourse, which can be started in the panels to diverse topics of current issues. Interdisciplinary participants bring together their respective fields and provide a valuable insight in South African and European mindsets.

Public Play:

Breaking Boundaries

Play conquers urban spaces as the city creates a stage for games, performance and interaction between everyone in this place.

Playful game concepts with amazing and wired rule sets engage interaction in the public and focuses on social and economic issues. These games are not games to escape to, but allow for a view onto the outside world: Locals, visitors and new residents come together as play reaches into public space to tell and hear collective, site-specific stories and experiences.

Exhibition:

Arcade and Installations

The exhibition will show artistic computer games, interactive and playful installations, video documentations of public intervention and games.

As South African and European culture is brought together, games and media art stands united too. Both fields open discussions, show parallels and therefore, gain new insights and knowledge. Artistic arcade games far off the mainstream allow for different experiences and new views on (un)known topics in a playful way, whereas technology is used as playground for artistic expression and experimental interaction with oneself, the people around or the world. Interested in critical reflection on social and political issues, both combine playful interaction to stun and amaze us.

The A MAZE. Exhibition will be presented at Wits Art Museum and Alexander Theatre.

Workshops:

Interdisciplinary Exchange

As an essential part of staging a collaborative festival, workshops take place prior to the event itself and function as incubator for effective synergies between South African and European culture due to their interdisciplinary. Interaction is not only about presentation but also about sharing, learning, and exchanging: Invited artists teach best practices by using development frameworks and technology for artistic and media reflecting approaches. Workshop participants gain also insights into trends and methods used in current art practices, which range from do-it-yourself principles to hardware hacking and software modifications, and include such diverse platforms as openFrameworks, Arduino, Pure Data, Wii Remotes, and commercial game engines.

Screenings:

Games and Movies

The big screen! Movies made with and in computergames let us live new experiences.

Machinimas, which combines the terms machine, animation and cinema in one word, open a new world of puppeteering and the way movies are made. As game-engines get more powerful, a broad spectrum of styles and possibilities become available to artists. In cooperation with Bioscope – Independent Cinema we will show on the last day of the festival the international awarded documentary Indie Game: The Movie.

48 hour game jam:

Get Creative

Games developers, designers and other enthusiasts come together for one weekend in order to devise new games.

The brief time span of 48 hours (in the model of the incredible Global Game Jam) encourages creative thinking and allows for small but innovative and experimental games. The topic is secret and related to Johannesburg. Collaboratively coding, designing, illustrating, music-making, or whatever necessary, is a wonderful opportunity for participants to expand their horizons, challenge themselves, and meet new people. Start developing a playable game with strangers who share the same passion in just two days!

Concerts:

While the performances deal with the relation of technology and human senses, the concert itself becomes a performance: It wants to be lived and experienced by eye, ear and mind, when colorful lights and stimulant sounds get generated and flow through bodies connected through one place in time.

Jump’n Run Party:

including DJs, live acts, performances, playful visuals, and interactive installations.
Game-inspired music is just one part of the mergence of party and pioneering art work based on experiments with computer game artifacts and aesthetics – expect hardware hack performances, chiptune celebrities, community building, fun, musical adventure games, as well as beautiful synesthetic experiences.

• Website: http://www.amaze-festival.de/interact-2012