Passages Nr. 54 by Pro Helvetia

passages

Computer Games: The Art of the Future G채uerle and Chlefele: Swiss Folk Culture in Argentina p. 6 Exoticism with a Twist: Chopin as Modern Opera p. 36 On the Heels of a Poet: Writer-in-Residence in Buenos Aires p. 41 tHe CU ltU ral MagaZ iNe o F pr o H e lV e t ia, N o . 5 4 , iSSU e 3 / 2 0 1 0

C o Nt eN t

10 – 35 Dossier: COMPUTER GAMES: THE ART OF THE FUTURE 3

EDITORIAL Next Level: Art Pius Knüsel

PRO HELVETIA NEWSFLASH In Search of a New Identity / Swiss Book Lists All Over the World / Creative Destruction / Swiss Experimental Films in India

REPORTAGE Chlefele for Beginners Hans Moser (text) Marco Vernaschi (photos)

Cover: Mirage Computer game by Mario von Rickenbach, ZHdK 2010

LOCAL TIME Warsaw: Chopin’s Oriental Adventure – A Modern-Day Fantaisie Florence Gaillard Paris: A Reader’s Treasure Trove in the Marais Florence Gaillard

Artfully designed computer games: this issue highlights final diploma work by students in the Game Design programme at the Zurich University of the Arts. 12

The World Is Not Enough Nicolette Kretz

In Search of the Holy Grail Marc Bodmer

GameCulture – A Pro Helvetia Programme

The Art of Immersion Martin Burckhardt

“Without prototype funding, nothing will happen” Malte Behrmann in conversation with Raffael Schuppisser

Homo ludens in the Age of Computer Games Thierry Wendling

PARTNER PROFILE Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr: Pioneering Cultural Sponsorship Brigitte Ulmer

IMPRESSUM PASSAGES ONLINE NEXT ISSUE

VIEWPOINT Where Is César Aira? Christoph Simon

GALLERY A Showcase for Artists “Horizonville” by Yann Gross

editorial

Next Level: Art When the printing press had been invented and the first books were starting to appear, the mighty of this world struck up a dirge: Paper, with its long memory, is the beginning of the end! And thus censorship was born; but it didn’t stop the advance of literature. When the first films were shown, the Keepers of the Keys of Kulture were incensed: Barbarism, they cried, the decline of the West, trampled under a mesmerizing parade of obscenities! And thus the instrumentalization of cinema for propaganda purposes was born; but the art film soon wriggled out of the clutches of politics. Now it is computer games that have emerged onto the world stage, and once again the air is filled with fears of moral decline, of brutalized youth and the seductive powers of violence. But Pro Helvetia wouldn’t be much of a cultural foundation if it weren’t convinced that the creative spirit, given time, will eventually distil and refine the quintessence of every new medium – and this goes for computer games as well. Half of all young people under the age of 25 play regularly. A truly interactive medium, the dream of many artists, is at last becoming reality; indeed, it will shape the way coming generations understand art. Computer games promote each player to the director of a fantasmatic theatre. The first generation of game designers now streaming out of Swiss art schools call themselves artists with the same confidence as do composers and writers. They are broadening the spectrum of their medium well beyond the violent games so fixed in the public imagination: there are graphics games, logic games, complex narrative games, fraught decisionmaking tests and ethical challenges. It won’t do simply to observe: this is something to be experienced at first hand. It’s time for policy-makers to pay serious attention to the dominant cultural phenomenon of our era. It’s time to stir the creative forces dormant in our nation and see to it that clever, beautiful, challenging and artistic games take their place beside all the blockbusters. With GameCulture, its programme for 2010–2012, Pro Helvetia embarks on an exploratory mission to a region of our cultural future, and this issue of Passages is part of the trip. So get your game on! Pius Knüsel Director, Pro Helvetia

p ro HelVetia N eW SFlaS H

Globalization is remaking society in its own image and, in the process, undermining structures that took centuries to develop. More and more people have come to feel rootless because of migration; they leave behind their languages and their homelands and begin searching for new identities. All the facets of this contemporary global transformation are explored in Dislocación, an exhibition in which over a dozen wellknown contemporary artists from Switzerland and Chile (including Ursula Biemann, Juan Castillo, Alfredo Jaar and Thomas Hirschhorn) present their own personal perspectives on the theme. The show, which will be supplemented by a programme of conferences, film showings and catalogues, is being curated by Ingrid Wildi Merino, a native Chilean who now lives in Geneva and also has

works of her own in the show, and Kathleen Bühler of the Museum of Fine Arts Bern. The bi-national project ran in Santiago de Chile until November, and will show at the Museum of Fine Arts Bern from 15 March to 19 June 2011. It is part of a Pro Helvetia cultural programme organized with Chile and Argentina staged as part of the celebration of the Bicentenario, the 200th anniversary of Latin American independence. www.dislocacion.cl

Dislocacion is an exhibition devoted to the globalized economy and migration.

Swiss Book Lists All Over the World

Franz Hohler’s children’s stories for a Spanish audience

Literary translations are an expensive undertaking for publishers, so Swiss authors are often hardly noticed outside their own language regions. Swiss List, a programme started by Pro Helvetia as part of its translation project Moving Words, is addressing this problem with the help of Pro Helvetia’s liaison offices as well as translators and literary agents by setting up a global network to publish a Swiss literature series. Pro Helvetia makes this possible by paying for translations and contributing to promotion budgets. Translation Publishing House in Shanghai, for example, will be publishing ten Swiss titles in Chinese, including Rolf Lappert’s prizewinning novel Swimming Home, while Norway’s Ganesa and Seagull Books of India are also putting out Swiss Lists. Children’s literature is part of the project as well: Franz Hohler’s collection of children’s stories The Big Book has already found audiences among speakers of both Spanish and Catalan.

Photo: “El espejo de Friedman” by Rodrigo Araya

In Search of a New Identity

Creative Destruction The aptly titled group show Under Destruction is currently showing at Museum Tinguely Basel and will move to the Swiss Institute in New York in March of 2011. The show celebrates the 50th anniversary of Jean Tinguely’s performance of destruction at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The curators, Chris Sharp and Gianni Jetzer, Director of the Swiss Institute, have brought together almost two dozen works by international artists to explore the role of destruction in contemporary art. When it first emerged in the 1960s, auto-destructive art was primarily about spectacle, protest and political statements. The contemporary pieces in Under Destruction are also quite spectacular, but they do not make destruction synonymous with smashing things to

In Jonathan Schipper’s installation, technology becomes its own worst enemy.

bits. Instead, these works (by Monica Bonvicini, Jimmie Durham, Michael Landy, Liz Larner, Christian Marclay, Roman Signer, and Johannes Vogl, among others) address the close connection between destruction and the creative act, as well as possible uses of destruction as a memento mori, as poetic transformation, or as creative force. Under Destruction runs at Museum

Photo (top): courtesy of the Artist & Pierogi, 2010

Swiss Experimental Films in India

Coming soon in India: a short film by Werner v. Mutzenbecher

In the realm of film production, Switzerland has more to offer than just exotic mountain backdrops for Bollywood, as Pro Helvetia New Delhi will show this winter with a lively programme of short films. From late February on, Swiss Experimental Films from 1962– 1974 will take films, workshops and roundtables to Pune, Mumbai and other Indian cities for two weeks each to give audiences a good look at a little-known period in Swiss film history. Whether to make political statements on the Vietnam War or to create hallucinogenic streams of images, numerous artists dis-

Tinguely Basel until 23 January 2011, and then moves to the Swiss Institute in New York from 2 March to 30 April. www.tinguely.ch www.swissinstitute.net

covered the medium of film in the revolutionary days of the sixties. This wild bunch bucked conventions and gave free rein to their creativity, and with their experiments laid the foundation for the New Swiss Film developed by such internationally known figures as Alain Tanner, Fredi M. Murer, and Markus Imhoof. After having been hidden in archives and attics for decades, these short films first returned to the screen in 2006. They were found and restored by reservoir, a curator cooperative led by Fred Truniger, a researcher in Film Studies at the University of Zurich who will be in India to present this programme of Swiss experimental films in person. For details see www.prohelvetia.in

Chlefele for beginners Chlefele, flag spinning, whip cracking and gäuerle were just some of the Swiss folk customs that a group of artists took with them when invited to perform in Argentina. While young Argentinians took to the unfamiliar culture like ducks to water, for the older generation of emigrants it was a sometimes melancholy reminder of the life they left behind.

Tripping the light fantastic at the Club Suizo in Ruiz de Montoya: Barbara Betschart (violin), Markus Flückiger (schwyzerörgeli) and Stephan Keiser (bass) present Swiss folk music in Argentina.

By Hans Moser (text) and Marco Vernaschi (photos) By the fourth attempt, their pronunciation is getting quite good. “Chlefele,” says Robert Kessler once again, and the schoolchildren repeat in chorus, their slight Spanish accent a reminder that for them this is an extremely exotic-sounding word. After ten minutes’ practice, some of the more adroit can even coax a few sounds from the objects concerned: two wooden clappers that are the Swiss equivalent of castanets. Then their guest from far away shows them what these objects can do in the hands of a master, and the twenty young people attempt to imitate him. “How long did you have to practise to get so good at it?” asks thirteen-year-old Nicolá. “A year,” answers Kessler, picking up a whisk and rhythmically beating a wooden crate. “Families in the Swiss mountains had no money to buy proper instruments,” he explains, “so they used every conceivable household implement to make music.” And now it’s the children’s turn to find out just what kind of music they can make. Kessler presents each of them with wooden spoons, two empty glass bottles, a straw broom and a piece of wood, the chlefele, also known as a rira. He instructs them to concentrate on playing correctly rather than making as much noise as possible, but few are listening – they’re already busy playing their 7

r ep o r ta ge

parts in the improvised concert. The majority of the notes are offkey, and yet Nicolá and his classmates are enjoying a brief but intense encounter with a world that most of them previously knew only from hearsay, if at all. Swiss tradition meets Argentine temperament The workshop at the Instituto Linea Cuchilla agricultural and technical college in the Argentine province of Misiones is part of the Volkskultur heute project jointly developed on behalf of Pro Helvetia by the Swiss culture management agency AAA and traditional arts specialist Johannes Schmid-Kunz. Accompanied by five other artists, Schmid-Kunz spent three weeks in South America performing in schools, clubs, at the traditional immigrants’ festival in the northern town of Oberá, and at other public events in Argentina and Chile, offering the locals a taste of More fun than maths: young women from the agricultural and technical college try their hand at a Swiss folk dance. Swiss folk culture old and new. In the multi-purpose hall of the Instituto Linea Cuchilla, Schmid-Kunz verses. Keiser rewards them with a yodel outside, through things like voluntary teaches the steps of a folk dance to a group and smiles broadly when he asks the chil- German lessons and other activities. The of young people. At first, the boys espe- dren what it was, to which one immedi- short workshops gave almost 150 schoolcially are hesitant and clumsy in their ately replies, “An opera!” children a chance to experience Swiss folk movements. But under the watchful eye of music, dance a schottische, and try out some typically Swiss percussion instrutheir teacher and with the musical accom- Reminders of home paniment of violinist and music teacher After the workshops the reactions are ments.” Barbara Betschart and Markus Flückiger, almost unanimously positive. Some of the While the encounter with their guests professional musician and virtuoso of the young people are simply glad of the variety from Switzerland is a whole new experitraditional Swiss accordion known as the the visitors have brought to their everyday ence for most of the young people, for the schwyzerörgeli, they soon cast off their in- school routine, a welcome change from older members especially the events that hibitions. “There’s a really good dance cul- maths and history lessons. For 13-year-old evening at the local Club Suizo in Ruiz de ture in this school,” is Schmid-Kunz’s ver- Patricia, the best thing was the dancing, Montoya and the next day at the Swiss asdict at the end of the workshop, “even if at while her exuberant schoolmate Alejandro sociation in Eldorado, some one-and-a-half times it was so loud that you couldn’t hear particularly enjoyed the chlefele demon- hours away by car, are a reminder of home. the music.” strations: “It’s amazing what you can get Many of them left Switzerland decades ago As singer and yodeler Stephan Keiser out of such simple instruments, and it was because they were unable to make a living discovers while practising the folk song great that we could try it for ourselves,” he there, and built new lives for themselves in “Det obe of em Bergli” with his groups, enthuses, adding, “I’ve seen Swiss folk mu- Misiones as farmers or craftspeople. They children in a South American school react sic on TV before, but of course it’s much have become Argentines while remaining with more enthusiasm and spontaneity better live.” School principal Martin Swiss, some more than others. The atmothan their counterparts in far-away Swit- Günthardt is also full of praise: “Of the sphere in the somewhat gloomy venue in zerland. They find it almost as difficult to 430 children who graduate from our inter- Ruiz de Montoya is initially rather subpronounce the word chueh as they do national school, around ten percent have dued. To the outsider, it seems that a vague chlefele, but that seems only to enhance Swiss nationality,” he explains. “We try to melancholy fills the air – but also somethe fascination. They quickly grasp the promote knowledge and understanding thing of the hardships that all immigrants melody, and with no more than the occa- about the unique features of Swiss culture, face. But once Robert Kessler has cracked sional slip they finally manage all three not just among the kids but also people his whip and then performed a brisk 8

They find it almost as difficult to pronounce the word chueh as they do chlefele, but that seems only to enhance the fascination. gäuerle – a traditional courtship dance – with his wife Margrit, the spell is broken and the mood lightens. Combining flag spinning with yodeling, songs, chlefele demonstrations and dancing, the artists present a small excerpt from the rich storehouse of Swiss folk culture. Their repertoire also includes an accordion piece composed and performed by Markus Flückiger himself, who together with bands such as Pareglish, which plays a mixture of folk music from a wide variety of countries, has broken new ground within the scene, mingling ländler folk dances with classical music, polka with rock, schwyzerörgeli with electronic. Flückiger also takes elements of

time-honoured folk culture and reinterprets them for a modern audience, while still retaining respect for the tradition. This modernization of Swiss culture is also reflected in the fact that Stephan Keiser’s alphorn is made of carbon and can be collapsed like a telescope into a compact form for transport. If they could have done the same with a double bass, the group would have brought one of those with them too. But shortly before the concert in Ruiz de Montoya begins, a lengthy search turns up a surprising discovery: rummaging around in the attic, one family discovers a double bass brought by Swiss immigrants to Misiones in 1938. “Todo genial” The performances in Oberá, featuring a flag-spinning course for young people and adults and a spontaneous dance happening with the local Swiss folk dancing group, are a great success. The group leader, who lived in Winterthur for some years, sends out some text messages and quickly gathers her dancers together. It rapidly emerges that the locals and their guests know the same dances, so both compete for the honours in the big evening performance at the Fiesta de los Inmi-

grantes. “The people in Oberá lapped it all up – the music, the dance and the singing,” is how Johannes Schmid-Kunz sums up the programme. “There’s huge interest in finding out more about Switzerland.” Corina Steinmann, manager of the SwissArgentine cultural foundation in Buenos Aires and co-organizer of the tour to Argentina, is delighted with the outcome. “The joint appearance at the festival led to a real cultural exchange,” she beams. All in all, however, the Swiss visit to Argentina is more a cultural refresher course for immigrants than a genuine exercise in give and take. The Swiss group will definitely be taking some lasting memories back home to Switzerland, but a true cultural exchange would have allowed the guests to gain a better idea of developments in Argentine folk culture. For the Swiss group’s guest appearance in the Chalet Suizo at Esperanza in the province of Santa Fe, every seat in the house is taken, and the audience’s enthusiasm is immediate. When they give lessons the next day in two schools, the Swiss musicians and dancers are amazed to see how much more interest in folk culture there is among young people of 12 and 13 than there would be among those of the same age in Switzerland. At the end of the event, the schoolchildren even ask for the artists’ autographs. “Todo genial – it’s absolutely fantastic,” is the response from local organizer Luis Megevand. A few days earlier, 85-year-old Hans Welti, who has lived in Misiones for six decades, had been less euphoric in his praise for the performance in Eldorado, but in his reserved way he nevertheless paid the group from Switzerland a compliment: “Finally I’ve heard some proper Swiss music again.” Hans Moser was Latin America correspondent of the Tages-Anzeiger from 2001 to the end of 2009. He still lives in Buenos Aires and works as a freelancer in a range of media. Marco Vernaschi, originally from Italy, has lived in Buenos Aires since 2005. His photography, for which he has won many prizes, takes him mainly to Africa and South America and has been published in GEO, Newsweek and National Geographic. www.marcovernaschi.com Translated from the German by Geoffrey Spearing

Cooking spoons, a whisk, percussion sticks, chlefele, a recorder and rira: the simplest implements often produce an amazing sound.

Compu ter Gam e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e

Colorize by Christoph Jörg, ZHdK 2010

Compu ter G am e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e

Get Your Game On! Computer games have become a permanent fixture in our everyday lives, as designers, scriptwriters and composers team up to create digital Wonderlands located somewhere between art and commerce. In this issueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dossier you can read about an avid gamerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s holiday with her virtual family, how scientists tinker away at a true-to-life avatar, and why computer games might just be the art form of the future.

Compu ter Gam e s: th e ar t o f t h e fu t u r e

ometimes the world is just home with a smile on my face, having just yourself and your house in order: eating, not enough. Sometimes picked up a copy of The Sims 3. Of course sleeping, going to the lavatory, showering, things don’t quite turn out you can start reading the first pages of a tidying up, cleaning, putting out the waste the way we thought they book while you are still on the tram, but a paper, eating, sleeping, going to the lavawould, despite everyone’s re- game needs a little more preparation. Nev- tory, showering, tidying up, cleaning, assurances. That’s when we ertheless, it takes just a few clicks to defrag putting out the waste paper. And then a decide to read a book. Or go to the cinema. your hard drive, install the game, and get message pops up telling you that your best Or the theatre. We switch on the TV. Or stuck in. I resolve to follow the manufac- friend is feeling neglected – both in the take drugs. Though the law discourages us turer’s instructions. “You should not play game and in real life. from doing so. Or we put a computer game when you are tired or have had insufficient Players can decide for themselves on into our disk drive. And watch the culture sleep. When using a computer or video the appearance and personality traits of the critics throw up their hands in despair. game you should take a break of 10–15 protagonists in this two-dimensional doll’s But my social background didn’t put minutes every hour.” Yeah right. house. For my first attempt I decide not to try anything fancy, so I create a fairly averme off the idea. Other children’s parents were in the free churches, my father was age couple. The woman – let’s call her Sonja * with IBM. They have a lot in common. – has a sense of humour, is very enthusiasBoth shape a childhood upon which an When you hear the words “computer tic about things; she’s a good kisser, but entire life is built. Just as the sons and game,” you probably think of running she’s rather disorganized. The man – we’ll call him Michail – is a charisdaughters of the Presbyterians and Pentecostalists went matic, artistically gifted to church on Sundays, so we workaholic. His goal in life is spent our weekends with our to be really popular; in the virtual world, that means father in his office. And while he was getting down to work, having at least twenty friends. we were allowed to sit in front Her lifetime wish is called of a free PC. We played around “Golden Tongue/Golden Finwith Styx, Digger, Q-Bird, gers,” which has nothing to Frogger – absurdly simple do with being a “great kisser” games of skill with rudimenand everything to do with A little escapism helps to spice up our everyday improving her “charisma” tary graphics and an irritatexistence. But those who immerse themselves and “guitar” skills. In short, ingly monotonous musical in the virtual world of the Sims could be soundtrack, and yet nevershe’s a virtual entertainer. As putting their game-life balance at serious risk. theless seriously addictive. young adults (that’s what their life stage is called), the When the Securitas man Here, a gamer reports on her day-to-day routine passed by on his rounds we couple don’t have much in the – on both sides of the technological divide. nervously pointed towards way of savings at the moment Dad in the other corner of the and can only afford a small By Nicolette Kretz brown and beige open-plan house: bedroom, living room office. Even then we already with an open kitchen, bath, and a bit of space to move had a vague sense of doing something forbidden – something that around shooting baddies or collecting around in. It’s nice enough, with a touch of placed us close to the margins of society, if pieces of gold, apples or precious stones. decoration and imagination even quite cosy not beyond. Today, though, I’m glad to Not with The Sims. Here, you’re managing – but it’s not a place to grow old in. have had this experience. Just as the chil- a family in its largely realistic everyday life. dren of farmers have no allergies and no You tell them what they should eat and * fear of large animals, I feel quite at home when, when they should go to bed, and with technical devices and don’t see them that they should head off to the bathroom The first thing they need to do is find work, as something fundamentally evil. You when the need takes them. And just as in because otherwise money will soon be runmight say I was born into a world of pixels. real life, there’s much more to it than ning short. Michail chooses politics. A job In the mornings, I don’t feel fully awake randomly living from day to day. You aim as a podium polisher is advertised in the until I’ve switched on my laptop, and a to achieve something: you need to think newspaper. From there he’ll soon move up train journey without my mobile phone to about careers, education, family and to being a ballot counter. Sonja is destined play with is almost a torture. friends, because every “Sim” has his or her for a career in music, so I have her scour So when I’m on holiday and it’s rain- own goals in life, such as being especially the newspapers and the Internet until an ing, you’ll most likely find me seeking ref- popular, becoming a top international spy, opportunity turns up. After a few days uge from reality in a game store rather or creating the perfect garden. But, just as there’s an ad for… well, a fan. Fine. Now than a bookshop. Just recently I skipped in real life, most of the day is spent keeping the money is trickling in, but that in itself

The World Is Not Enough

Compu ter G am e s: th e ar t o f t h e fu t u r e

doesn’t make things easier. As in real life, Sims perform best at their jobs when they arrive for work in a good mood after a proper night’s sleep, a shower and a good breakfast. And as in real life, a Sim day only has twenty-four hours. Pretty good time management is needed just to take care of a Sim’s basic functions, so that the meters for hunger, bladder, energy, social life, hygiene and fun stay in the green section. My ambition grows. I buy Sonja a guitar to give her a chance of becoming a rock star. I have Michail practising speeches in

Other children’s parents were in the free churches, my father was with IBM. They have a lot in common. front of a mirror. Suddenly I want everything! Career, lovely house, kids – and in that order. My plan is to work my way up as quickly as possible, scrape together enough money to buy a larger house, and then have a baby immediately. Things work out quite well for my couple: within a few weeks, Michail’s career has progressed from ballot counter through campaign worker to city council member, and from there via mayor to governor. Sonja starts out as a roadie, then becomes successively band manager, lyricist, background vocalist and finally lead guitarist. My couple soon have enough income to hire a maid. Then they start regularly organizing parties, which increases their popularity. My It Girl and Mr. Popularity are now finally what in most circles is called “successful”. Soon everything is just how I had imagined it. But in the blink of an eye, my Sims turn from “Young Adults” into “Adults”. That means – oh horror of horrors – the next stage is “Elders”! I need to get a move on, because my couple still need to have a child. So I put Sonja and Michail on the bed and click on “Try for Baby”. But what on earth’s happening? They push each other away, both shaking their heads in irritation, even anger. All the time I was busy promoting their careers and organizing parties I’d completely forgotten to manage their relationship! So a few days now need to be spent pampering, cuddling and massaging. Success comes at the third attempt. My couple dive under the duvet beneath a cloud of hearts, canoodling and

giggling contentedly. After a while they emerge again, with smiles on the faces. Just as things ought to be. * Don’t worry. When I write “a couple of days,” what I actually mean is “Sim” days, and they last... well, how long do they last exactly? When you’re inside the game you completely lose track of time. You forget about the manufacturer’s instructions. In fact, you forget all kinds of things. Cups of tea go cold in the kitchen with the teabag still in them, your inbox fills up with unanswered e-mails, and your mother starts to fret because you never call her. After a few days I begin to experience an unusual twitching in my right arm. For a moment I’m concerned, but then I switch to using the mouse with my left hand for a day. So off I go again. No question of taking a break – not now, when everything is going so well! Gaming quickly takes over, and instead of playing a bit now and then I begin organizing my (real) life around short breaks in the game, when my computer is starting up or my Sims are asleep. And whereas at the start what I did in the game reflected what I do in real life, now it seems to me as if I’m doing in real life what my Sims do in their world. I go to the fridge. I call my friends. I clean the lavatory; and

achieved. Now that Sonja and Michail have successful careers (she is a Pop Icon, he is Leader of the Free World), little Wojcek has arrived (characteristics: genius and madness), and he still has his whole life ahead of him. Just to make sure, I set a reminder in my calendar to coincide with the end of my holiday. Then I bury the game in the garden. Because, sooner or later, you do have to admit that enough is enough. Nicolette Kretz lives in Bern. She works as a freelance author and spoken-word performer as well as dramatic advisor to the auawirleben theatre festival. Translated from the German by Geoffrey Spearing

But, just as in real life, most of the day is spent keeping yourself and your house in order: eating, sleeping, going to the lavatory, showering, tidying up, cleaning, putting out the waste paper… when there’s really no alternative, I go to bed. In my mind’s eye I even see my needs indicator dropping into the red before I run to the bathroom. When I meet up with friends, I notice that I don’t have much to tell them. They don’t seem particularly interested in the fact that my Sims have bought a new TV. The game’s architecture is like a good soap opera: there’s never a point when all the problems are solved and the fun ends, there’s always another goal waiting to be 13

Compu ter Gam e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e

CrownedÂ by Gregor Falk, ZHdK 2010

Compu ter G am e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e

Compu ter Gam e s: th e ar t o f t h e fu t u r e

s the little robot Wall-E himself has made a major contribution to accords games the same cultural status as scoots around gathering ETH’s outstanding international reputa- film.” up piles of rubbish and tion. He has been involved in computer Disney Interactive, the video games cleaning the planet, he is graphics for over twenty years, and in the department, operates six game studios followed by a cloud of fine mid-90s set up a laboratory devoted to the around the globe. “They were originally dust. Many cinemagoers topic at ETH. “Much of the work done back small, independent studios that have been won’t have given it a second thought: after then was interesting for Disney,” says bought up by Disney over recent years,” all, the ground is bone dry and the robot’s Gross. says Sumner. The nearest to the Zurich retracks are bound to stir it up. Few will have Currently there are 26 people work- search lab is the Blackrock Studio in considered the extraordinarily complex ing at Disney Research as well as eight Brighton, UK, which came to public attencalculations required to depict fog, smoke doctoral students from ETH. “The stu- tion this year with its racing game Split or dust in an animated film or Second. Did DRZ play a part in a computer game. But that’s the game’s success? “No, not directly,” says Sumner. “We precisely the kind of numbercrunching currently being deal with research issues that done by a group of scientists in go beyond everyday produca small, newly renovated villa tion.” Sumner visits the varinot far from the main building ous studios regularly, talking of the Swiss Federal Institute to staff about their projects and the difficulties that lie of Technology (ETH) in Zuahead – even the seemingly rich. Like many of the buildings in the area it is part of the all-powerful science of compuuniversity campus, but with a ter graphics is coming up striking difference: the silveragainst barriers. He then disProducing a realistic imitation of the human grey address board of Disney tils the key issues from these Research Zurich (DRZ) bears conversations. “Half of our face or a dust cloud is one of the most contribution lies in locating the grinning face of Mickey challenging tasks for developers of animated Mouse. the problem, the other in findfilms and computer games. At the In the office of Bob Suming a solution. Simply identifyner, Senior Research Scientist, ing a difficulty has scientific newly opened Disney Research laboratory the old witch from Snow White value.” in Zurich, scientists are working to tempts visitors with a shiny lay the technical foundations for the computer poisoned apple, while the The ambition of creating the bookshelves are crammed games of tomorrow. perfect illusion with titles such as Game DeFrom its earliest days, sign Workshop, Action! CarDisney has been well-known By Marc Bodmer tooning and The Animator’s for placing technological innovation at the service of Survival Kit. “Our offices were audiovisual entertainment. created by one of Disney’s own interior designers,” says SumSteamboat Willie, the first ner; each room, as he points out, has a dif- dents are paid either wholly or partly by publicly exhibited sound cartoon to feaDisney,” says Gross. “That’s part of the ture Mickey Mouse, was one of the first ferent cartoon theme. contract and of course it’s great.” The cen- ever to feature a synchronized soundtrack. tre is currently working on some seventy At the time Walt Disney, the company’s Game studios around the globe Disney Research Zurich is one of two projects ranging from converting various founder, was unsure whether people would external research laboratories run by the video formats to optimizing 3-D represen- accept the idea of a cartoon figure producWalt Disney Company. The other is at tations and technology for leisure parks ing sounds. His aim was to devise as realCarnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, such as Disneyland. “The laboratory is di- istic a visual spectacle as possible. That USA. So the obvious question is: why vided up into a number of areas with the ambition – of creating the perfect illusion choose Zurich? “ETH is the best technical senior researchers as their centres of grav- – continues to drive the company even touniversity in Europe and one of the best in ity,” explains Bob Sumner, who heads the day, and also underpins the research ethos the world,” explains Markus Gross, Direc- animation and interactive graphics sec- at its outpost at ETH. It is here that the tor of Disney Research Zurich, whose tions specializing in video and computer technical foundations for the future of anworkstation is decorated with scenes and games. “Our aim is to support the artists imation and video games are laid. sketches from Peter Pan. “By setting up so that they can express themselves more The technology used to create those here, Disney is securing access to new tal- fully. That’s also one reason I welcome Pro increasingly realistic computer-animated ents and a large knowledge pool.” Gross Helvetia’s GameCulture initiative, which films and video games is essentially the

In Search of the Holy Grail

Compu ter G am e s: th e ar t o f t h e fu t u r e

same. But as Bob Sumner points out, the devil is in the detail. There are, he argues, fundamental differences. “In a game, all the calculations need to be carried out in real time. You don’t know which viewing angle will be selected next: the player makes that decision. So the camera has to respond to spontaneous, individual input, whereas with films everything is deter-

“In a game, all the calculations need to be carried out in real time. You don’t know which viewing angle will be selected next: the player makes that decision…” mined in advance.” What the two have in common, though, is the need for rapid and efficient processing, because after all, “no graphic artist wants to wait more than an hour for a computer to draw a picture.” This process, known as rendering, is a discipline in its own right, and it’s the job of specialists such as Wojciech Jarosz at Disney Research Zurich. Diffuse light in a computer animation requires an enormous number of calculations, as the rays are broken up, refracted and reflected in countless ways by a myriad of tiny particles. Until now, processing effects like this has been massively time-consuming, but as Bob Sumner explains, “We’ve now developed a new technology that makes rendering far more efficient, and that in turn gives the artists more creative freedom.” Forty-four muscles for 5000 different expressions Just as complicated to calculate as the diffusion of light through fog is the appearance of human skin. If we look at computer animations of human beings from just a few years ago, their body surfaces appear flat and hard like plastic. When light falls on our skin it is not simply reflected: some of it penetrates the surface, some is diffused and refracted; some is even absorbed, due to the skin’s irregularities. There is nothing computers “like” less than deviations from an existing template, because these have to be recalculated and interpreted all over again. Some of the processes now used to do this come from

the science of astrophysics, and were originally employed to interpret interstellar clouds. But it is not just human skin that presents constant challenges for the researchers and scientists at the ETH laboratory. One of the key areas of activity at the DRZ is modelling the human face – for Markus Gross, still the “holy grail” of film animation. One of his research groups has developed a machine that uses a number of cameras to optically scan a human face from different positions up to sixty times a second. This form of high-speed photography reveals tiny mimetic changes. There are forty-four muscles used to move the human face, which is capable of 5,000 expressions, some of them extremely subtle. Add in external influences such as a punch or a slap and, as the head of the DRZ puts it, “the deformation physics of the face is highly complex.” A veritable tsunami of ripples sweeps across the face like the impact of a meteorite on water, causing cheeks and lips to tremble for a fraction of a second. The human eye constantly picks up these countless pieces of minute visual information, and the brain, honed in the art of survival over thousands of years, supplies the appropriate interpretations. This very precise form of perception makes it especially difficult to generate a perfect illusion of a human being. Attempts often end up in the “uncanny valley” that lies on the path to realistic computer animation. We are unsettled by the

A veritable tsunami of ripples sweeps across the face like the impact of a meteorite on water, causing cheeks and lips to tremble for a fraction of a second. abrupt realization that an apparently lifelike animation is actually nowhere near the original. Simulating the eyes is especially tricky. In computer graphics they usually appear to stare lifelessly into space. Yet when we are attempting to assess the feelings of another human being, it is the eyes that supply us with the most information. Nevertheless, Bob Sumner is convinced that we will find a way through the

valley: one day, he says, “it will be impossible to tell the difference between a real human being and an avatar.” Working with Zurich’s universities The ultimate goal may still be some way off, but the team is currently busy with the topical issue of 3-D representation which, fresh from its conquest of the silver screen, is set to take over the world of gaming. “Stereoscopic research is very important,” argues Markus Gross. “The stereo effect should always be in the comfort zone and remain pleasant.” Experience has shown that rapid sequences are problematic, and this is especially true in

Attempts often end up in the “uncanny valley” that lies on the path to realistic computer animation. video games. “In fast-moving scenes the impression of depth has to be changed or reduced because otherwise the quality will suffer.” Another key element in the way we perceive the illusion of three-dimensionality (something that at least ten percent of us cannot see) is the synchronization of camera systems: “If it’s poorly done,” explains Gross, “the audience starts to feel sick.” Aside from their high-tech research, the staff of the Disney Research laboratory are also involved in teaching at ETH. A central element of the bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes in visual computing is a project-based game development course. This enables students to engage in greater depth with topics related to computer science and more specialized forms of computer graphics. Using the XNA program from Microsoft they are developing a real video game, which it is hoped can be distributed worldwide via the online platform of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 games console. “Students are excited about programming for a real hardware platform,” says Bob Sumner. “That means they are prepared to invest more time in the tasks, which in turn makes the developments more successful and enhances the learning effect.” The DRZ also frequently attracts high-profile speakers such as Ed Catmull, co-founder and chairman of Pixar Animation Studios (Toy Story, 17

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Wall-E). Designers and programmers from Disney Interactive Studios are invited to offer practical criticism and advice on projects submitted by ETH students and the game design course at the Zurich University of the Arts. When you are researching for the world’s largest entertainment company, there’s more to life than just wrestling with technical complexities: you can come up with solutions while enjoying an

“It will be impossible to tell the difference between a real human being and an avatar.” evening at the cinema, playing a computer game, or visiting Disneyland. It’s hard to imagine a more satisfying feeling in the otherwise pretty dry world of information technology. Marc Bodmer is a lawyer by training and has been working as a freelance journalist for more than 25 years, specializing in video games and digital media. Since 2009 he has headed the Improving Media Literacy development project at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Translated from the German by Geoffrey Spearing

GameCulture – A Pro Helvetia Programme Across the world, sophisticated, elegantly designed computer games have established themselves as a new form of art and entertainment. Yet their potential – whether artistic, narrative or technical – is far from exhausted. And considering the collaboration of designers, scriptwriters, animators and composers needed to create the requisite digital environments for these truly comprehensive works of art, their very synthesis of visual art, music and film means that games are natural candidates for official financial support. During the two years of its programme, which has a total budget of CHF 1.5 million, Pro Helvetia will devote itself to aesthetic, social and economic issues associated with computer games. GameCulture got underway this autumn with “Call for Projects: Swiss Games”, staged jointly with the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, the International Animation Film Festival Fantoche, and the SUISA Foundation for Music. Innovative computer game projects with a claim to consideration as art can be submitted until 15 March 2011. Exhibitions and discussion forums The GameCulture programme is accompanied by a series of events shedding light on the subject from a variety of perspectives. The Stapferhaus Lenzburg hosts HOME – Willkommen im digitalen Leben (Welcome to life in the digital world), a show devoted to the increasing digitisation of our quotidian existence under the onslaught of chatting, googling and gaming, while the traveling DVD exhibition Swiss Game Design showcases Helvetian work in the field of game technologies, simulation and “serious games” as of autumn 2011. Finally, in January of 2012, Yverdon’s Maison d’Ailleurs will present Playtime/Game mythologies. And then there are the discussion forums, at the Festival of Fantastic Film in Neuchâtel in July of 2011 as well as at Fantoche in Baden in September, where competition winners will also be announced. www.gameculture.ch The online platform www.gameculture.ch provides details on all events mentioned above as well as useful background information. For instance, a study carried out by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences answers questions about the potential propensity for violence and addiction among gamers, while a report by the Zurich University of the Arts offers insight into the little-known world of Swiss game design. The site, operated by Pro Helvetia in tandem with its partners (the Zurich University of the Arts, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, the Association for Swiss Game Development and the Swiss Gamers Network), also provides tips on training opportunities in the field of game design.

Compu ter G am e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e Mirage by Mario von Rickenbach, ZHdK 2010

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Dainaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Herbarium by Dario Hardmeier and Raffaele de Lauretis, ZHdK 2010

Compu ter G am e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e

Compu ter Gam e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e

Dainaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Herbarium by Dario Hardmeier and Raffaele de Lauretis, ZHdK 2010

Compu ter G am e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e

Compu ter Gam e s: th e ar t o f t h e fu t u r e

ould video games represent time: the inability to grasp the vibrant and within itself the possibility of unlimited the art form of the future? ever-changing nature of art. repetition and variation). And yet, the fulfillment of this longing has generated disCertainly. Why, then, does may rather than arousing pleasure. Why? the mere thought seem to The computer game as call forth a whole coalition Gesamtkunstwerk One reason may be that the video game of nay-sayers? Bourgeois Just as one does not ask the empty has dissolved the position of the author. audiences instinctively shrink back from canvas to reveal what a painting is, specu- Whereas artists could heretofore coquetthe new, and the established arts are relating on the artistic character of a compu- tishly claim that it is the reader or viewer pelled by this technologically superior ter game is useful only with an eye to es- who actually writes a text or develops a bastard art form. Ultimately – so goes the tablishing what new contributions video point of view, now, with the video game, prejudice – games are nothing but the games have made to art. If one takes an the inversion of authorship has become most vulgar kind of gimmickry, instru- unprejudiced look at this brave new world, disquietingly real. Not only does the aumentalized by a profit-hungry industry, to a window opens to the future that essen- thor seem to have disappeared, but users say nothing of the fact that they allow the tially fulfills all the expectations for an navigating a virtual world do not even remilitary-industrial complex to groom will- “open work” (Umberto Eco). The medium’s alize that their movements are nothing ing first-person shooters. Such accusa- possibilities raise questions that (at least more than the implementation of a prefabtions may contain a grain or ricated program. two of truth, but the foray into the pandemonium of Immersion: total horrors only serves to blind sensurround If players may falsely supobservers to what is new and innovative about the mepose that they are in control, we have identified a paradox: dium. Such ignorance, however, has a long tradition. the highest art might well conOne does not have to look sist in the artist’s own disapfar back in history to be reAre video games trash or art? It depends on pearance. In fact, this logic of minded that other forms, heightened effects had already your point of view. For cultural theorist Martin which we now honour with spurred Richard Wagner to Burckhardt, the artistic value of games have his orchestra musicians the title of art (such as pholies in their ability to offer the player the illusion disappear into the orchestra tography or film), once suffered from the same taint pit – in other words, into oblivof being surrounded by an imaginary world – that serves to stigmatize ion. On the other hand, the an illusion that game engineers are artist’s disappearance is the computer games today. working to perfect by creating ever-more In the 1940s a master of very source of the fascination the cinema like Alfred Hitchseductive virtual spaces. games exert on many young cock was still considered a players: because they are now pulp-fiction director, with a the ones who can descend unBy Martin Burckhardt disdain that testifies to the hindered into their ludic envidubious character then asronment. When the joystick in cribed to the film medium: a the hand vibrates like the conhybrid genre that could only hope to pass from the author’s point of view) had never trols of a jeep, when the bumps in the road as art if explicitly associated with high-cul- been asked, and provide answers that had are transmitted to the body, when the moture forms such as literature and theatre. never been conceived before. Thus it is all tor whines and the 3D glasses simulate As a result, filmed theatre was welcomed the more astonishing that the discourse depth of field, the players are no longer in into the ranks of art, while the true princi- associates video games with a fairly asocial the here and now but have, like Alice, gone ples of film as art developed underground. role, that of the pariah. This marginality through the looking glass. The technical So ignorance of contemporaneous artistic applies not only to the present time, but term for the artistic device that creates this phenomena is by no means new; indeed, also obscures the fact that a tradition is be- illusion is “immersion”: specifically, the Walter Benjamin once skewered it by mis- ing updated. If one lets the history of mod- player’s complete engulfment for the durachievously asking “what the Germans were ern art flash before one’s eyes, it becomes tion of the game, the feeling of being in a reading while their classics were being clear that a significant motive is found in spaceship or balancing at a dizzying height written.” And since, from this perspective, the interconnection of artistic media. Seen on the edge of a roof. While representareaders would have had to devote them- this way, the video game is the technical tional painting had concerned itself only selves to the Robber Captain Rinaldo fulfillment of the fantasy of the Gesamt- with trompe-l’œil, optical illusion, here Rinaldini, and not to Goethe and Schiller, kunstwerk, the synthesis of all the arts: the the sensory illusion is now complete, comthe typical starting position turns out to revelation of a transmedial, synaesthetic prising not only the sensory apparatus but be complete blindness to one’s present sensory apparatus (which also carries also memory and human emotion. Essen-

The Art of Immersion

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tially, there can be no more radical aspiration for art than this: the expectation that the soundscape through which players moves may transport them mentally to another world, just as the spaces through which they navigate take on a persuasive verisimilitude of their own. Engineering genius Thus while art critics warn of medial anomie, one could just as easily speak of the triumph of art. Because art succeeds at luring the player out of her everyday world into a fantasmatic Wonderland, in which the laws of gravity no longer seem to be in force. At the same time, however, the computer game has less to do with the work of artists than with the genius of engineers: all those nameless souls designing the machines for 3D sound, shading and object tangibility (the physics engine). In dismissing these achievements as mere technology, critics easily forget that Renaissance painting, too, had its technical aspect – and that more than a few painters made use of the camera obscura, i.e. artificial optical enhancement. These days, however, we are no longer in the field of manufacturing, but rather on the cutting edge of technical abstraction, and it is no coincidence that the computer game industry occupies an avant-garde position, without which the historical dramas or fantasy films of the past decades would be unthinkable. The Lord of the Rings trilogy,

Bourgeois audiences instinctively shrink back from the new, and the established arts are repelled by this technologically superior bastard art form. epics like Scorsese’s Aviator, or even otherwise old-fashioned productions such as Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima – in every case, the visual believability of these films derives from their virtual spaces, for which they are indebted to the world of computer games, although this believability is usually ascribed to the powers of the film medium. In fact, the set design (or, to use the technical term, the level design) of the average computer game is the most evident

hallmark of this new world. We may almost literally enter into the images placed before us: because they allow us to penetrate into perfectly elaborated (one might even say soberly hallucinated) spaces. Unfortunately, the art scene missed the arrival of this new type of image. One may certainly lament the monotonous game mechanics of a First Person Shooter video game like Half Life II; but the way in which the game conjures up post-Socialist tristesse is magnificent, as is the resurrection of medieval Jerusalem in Assassin’s Creed, the spaceship architecture of Mass Effect, or the Wild West revival of a new entry in the sweepstakes, Read Dead Redemption. While the look of the early computer games was largely inspired by film sets, now things are the other way around. It is not just that completely unprecedented spaces have been created: such spaces, like the Tibetan temple in Uncharted II, have the ability to transform themselves into something else besides. In this sense, contemporary games, exhibiting a newly-acquired confidence, are no longer all about emphasizing visual opulence. Instead, the player’s experience is clearly at the forefront. Total seduction If immersion means being completely submerged in another world, it becomes clear that sensory illusions are not enough. Of course, level design is crucial, in order that the illusion may be successful; as important as appropriate music and soundscape, seamless animation and so-called cutscenes (cinematic sequences inserted to break up the game play and advance the plot, much like the way intertitles were used in silent cinema). However, in order to give players the feeling that they are the hero of the story (in other words: the one who is writing it at that particular moment), greater effort is necessary. For the illusion only sets in when the game has succeeded at capturing the player’s imagination, without for all that creating a sense of coercion. Such an endeavour points to the genuine artistic question associated with the video game. The question is: how can one tell a story that is not determined in advance, but in which the player’s decisions play an important role? Or to put it positively: how is it possible for a player to become the hero of the story?

Here a critic might object that this is exactly the question video games have failed to answer until now. Now, that may be true, but one could just as easily reply that every failure along the way has propelled the art form a big step forward. An interesting example is the French video

Seen this way, the video game is the technical fulfillment of the fantasy of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the synthesis of all the arts: the revelation of a transmedial, synaesthetic sensory apparatus. game director David Cage and Heavy Rain, his third game to date, which is impressive for Cage’s readiness to devote himself to the problem of narrative. While most computer games offer a relatively simple range of options, in which the player’s freedom to manoeuvre is central, Cage reduces this control. He systematically forces the player into situations in which he or she must make an ethical decision. And since the player recognizes that this decision is in no way marginal, but will instead play a decisive role in the further outcome of the game, the moment of interactivity becomes morally charged. The stratagem Cage uses here represents an inversion of the previous settings. Whereas interactivity was as a rule equated with the removal of inhibitions, with a license to kill, Cage now compels his players to make sacrifices: as the father of a kidnapped child, for instance, players are required to cut off one of their own fingers to secure the life of the hostage. In this way Cage turns game mechanics into a moral institution: indeed, into a laboratory in which players can act out various dramas. As a result, the individual player becomes the central focus – as a vulnerable author and not as an emotionless consumer. If the public has responded enthusiastically to this game in spite of all the rules it violates, it is because Heavy Rain fulfils a desire: for one’s own actions to make a difference. Because, contrary to the assumptions of an industry focused solely on turnover, interactivity does not mean that the user merely wants to push a button and indiscriminately mas25

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sacre random enemies. More than anything else, players want to slip into someone else’s skin, in order to experience complex patterns of behaviour and interpretation not otherwise available. The moral dilemmas Cage presents to his players are clearly not the last word. Rather, they are the beginning of a new narrative technique that will avail itself of far subtler means in the future. If, however, the actual fascination stems from immersing oneself in a story, this points to a connection that is often overlooked – precisely

While representational painting had concerned itself only with trompe-l’œil, optical illusion, here the sensory illusion is now complete. because of most games’ resemblance to the cinema. For the player’s retina is not the main organ affected by video games – there is also that oft-neglected thing we call imagination. In this sense, the computer game (which we, in perfect misrecognition of this characteristic, call a video game) has more in common with a novel than with a film, since it is not the opulence of the surroundings but the feeling of being woven into a particular framework of action and interpretation that matters. And thus computer games can do without the action-packed strategies, such as rapid cutting or high-speed car chases, perfected by cinema; for, unlike film, the computer game has plenty of time – as much time, indeed, as only the novel enjoys. If the classical reader was wont to imagine himself as a character in a novel, the gamer may actually enter into the character of her choice. And that is precisely the innovation of this art form: it is a novel you can step inside. Martin Burckhardt is a cultural theorist and media author. He has written a multivolume cultural genealogy of the machine; his latest publications are 68. Die Geschichte einer Kulturrevolution (2009) and Eine kleine Geschichte der grossen Gedanken (2008). He lives in Berlin. Translated from the German by Marcy Goldberg

Compu ter G am e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e Icebox Carrots by Michael Burgdorfer, ZHdK 2010

Compu ter Gam e s: th e ar t o f t h e fu t u r e

Mr. Behrmann, you are a lobbyist for government funding of computer game development. Why do you believe games deserve such support? Computer games are socially relevant, for three different reasons. First of all, they are crucial technological building blocks. Over the past twenty years, the development of computer hardware – such as in the area of processor capabilities – has been boosted significantly by the games industry. Games are also of economic importance, because the industry is growing rapidly. Last year, two out of the five fastest-growing businesses in Germany were computer game companies. But the key point about computer games is their cultural significance. Computer games shape our thought processes and the way we perceive things. This influential medium is now an indispensable part of our everyday lives.

audience. Innovation often emerges in the interface between player and computer, such as motion-sensitive controls. What kind of support is there for computer games in Germany? On the national level we are still struggling to establish effective support. At least we now have the German Com-

“Without prototype funding, nothing will happen”

for a similar development in computer game funding. On the state level there have already been further advances, in the form of various projects. How have the German federal states targeted their funding? They generally focus on promoting prototypes, which is the first playable version of a game. In order to find a distributor for a particular game, a convincing prototype must be presented. But this requires a whole production team, and is an expensive undertaking – on average around EUR 200,000. That’s why it’s important to provide support in the earliest stages for development studios with potentially successful projects. When the studios manage to sign a contract with a distributor, they are usually required to pay back the funds.

Are these funding projects run as cultural support or What criteria are used to When it comes to development support for business development? determine whether a game computer games, Germany is way It depends. In Hamburg should receive cultural ahead of its neighbour Switzerland. The it’s purely business developfunding? German federal states invest several million ment; in Bavaria and Berlin it There are several criteria. is combined cultural and One is the use of narrative, euros a year in the games industry. economic support. In Badenwhich is prevalent in our WestMalte Behrmann, Managing Director of Württemberg there is now ern culture, going all the way GAME – the German National talk of introducing a purely back to ancient Greek drama. technological funding For this reason, it makes sense Association of Game Developers – outlines scheme. to expect a narrative dimenhis country’s funding policy and what sion in a computer game, too. Switzerland could learn from it. Where does the funding Another aspect is the ludic, money come from, and how which emphasizes gameplay much are we talking about? and the interaction process. A Interview: Raffael Schuppisser The money comes from third criterion is innovation: a the federal and state budgets, good game should try to do respectively. The states pay about three to something new, and not just rehash an puter Game Award, which was estabfive million euros in support funding, established formula. But of course perlished two years ago under the aegis of while the federal government’s share of sonal taste also plays a role in making the Federal Commissioner for Cultural decisions about cultural funding. and Media Affairs. The prize money totals the Computer Game Award is only about 300,000. EUR 500,000 per year, to be awarded in So what exactly is a “good” narrative or several categories, and the winners are France is considered particularly an “innovative” game? required to invest the money in new That can only be discussed in terms projects. We have already seen this model progressive with regard to computer game funding. What are the French of a specific project. The game Heavy in the film industry: the first German doing in this area? Film Prize was awarded in the 1950s, but Rain, for instance, is particularly wellThe French government spends EUR the Federal Film Board was only estabknown for its narrative. As for gameplay, 4 million annually on prototype funding, lished fifteen years later. We are hoping it depends on the genre and the target 28

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which creates financing for about twenty different projects each year. In addition, France provides subsidies in the form of tax credits for game productions. In Switzerland, support for game development has only now become a topic for cultural funding. What kind of support schemes does Switzerland need? I don’t know the Swiss game development scene well enough to be able to answer this question in depth. It could be a good idea to focus on one particular area at first, for example on games for children, or games of particular cultural value. Or on games for mobile phones, where development costs are lower? I think that would be a mistake. Of course the mobile games industry is booming right now. But over the past seven years I have seen it completely collapse three times. It’s a highly volatile industry, because mobile operating systems are constantly changing. Mobile games certainly have potential. But in my opinion, the fuss being made right now about the iPhone is just a passing trend. A study commissioned by Pro Helvetia found that computer games are indeed being developed in Switzerland, but that there is no cohesive industry. What could a professional association accomplish here? The most important thing we have accomplished with GAME and the EGDF (European Games Developer Federation) has been to boost game developer confidence and strengthen the identity of those working in the sector. When we founded GAME seven years ago, the German game developers were a diverse bunch of nerds. In addition, we have had some political successes, such as cultural recognition for computer games in the federal goverment’s coalition agreement, or development support for the industry. And by the way, GAME doesn’t only represent Germany, but also Austria and Switzerland. We have Austrian members, but as yet no Swiss members. Could a Swiss Computer Games Award help the industry here?

If the prize money were generous enough, certainly. I don’t think much of a purely symbolic award. Wouldn’t a large prize simply go to support already-established game developers? Even an established studio that has won an award is still faced with the need for a large sum of money to develop a new project. One successful project is seldom enough. In the last two years two German studios, the video game developers Ascaron and Radon Labs, had to file for bankruptcy, although they had successful games out on the shelves. And what can be done to support newly-founded studios? Funding for prototype development. But attention should be paid to the studios receiving that support, in order to ensure that something comes out of it and that the money is being spent in a coherent way. In other words: does Switzerland need prototype sponsorship in order to develop a national games industry? Absolutely. Without prototype funding, nothing will happen.

There was a debate about that during this year’s German Computer Game Awards. It is no secret that the jury originally wanted to award the main prize to a game with a “Restricted” (18 and over) rating. A lot of political pressure was brought to bear on the jury to change its decision and give the prize to a violence-free game. I think that such discussions are necessary, and that we have to encourage a certain tolerance toward differing opinions. As a business association, however – and now I’m speaking as a GAME senior manager – we believe that there can be such a thing as a “culturally valuable” game that also contains violence. Malte Behrmann, an attorney based in Berlin, is Managing Director (Politics) of GAME, the German National Association of Game Developers, and Secretary General of the European Game Developer Federation EGDF. He lectures at various institutions in France and at the Games Academy in Germany and is the author of Kino und Spiele (2005). Raffael Schuppisser is a freelance journalist based in Baden, Switzerland. He covers computer games and internet topics for the NZZ and NZZ am Sonntag newspapers. Translated from the German by Marcy Goldberg

Switzerland is currently debating whether or not to ban so-called “killer” or violent games. In Germany this has been an ongoing issue. Could this kind of discussion ultimately help put the topic of development support for games on the table? Certainly. Generating attention for our needs through the public debate about violent games has always been part of GAME’s lobbying strategy. We have clearly succeeded in changing people’s perceptions of the games industry – from complete rejection to a rather positive attitude. The culture debate wins over the violence debate, because it offers a positive perspective rather than one based on banning something. “Support, not censorship” has always been our slogan. I think this is also the path that Switzerland needs to take. Should the funding agencies completely distance themselves from games with violent content, or might these also be worthy of support? 29

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Beat Fleet by Filip Kostovic, ZHdK 2010

Compu ter G am e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e

Compu ter Gam e s: th e ar t o f t h e fu t u r e

he current information fascinating way certain video games have the practices involved and the way repretechnology revolution is come to be regarded as “sports” in their sentations are employed. one of the great moments own right. The discredit that has befallen Similarly, the perceived dangers of in the history of human- video games in western societies for some video games stem from two complemenity. An extension of the time centres on the fact that they can blur tary interpretations: namely, that players rise of industrialization in the distinction between the virtual and the will become self-destructive, and that they the nineteenth century, computers have real, encourage violent behaviour and en- will subject others to the violence they see found their way into almost all areas of gender addiction. in games. To cite the remarkable 2005 case our lives. Play, an essential part of human Some illuminating comparisons al- of the South Korean man who expired in existence, has also been touched by this low us to take a distanced view of these an Internet café after playing 50 straight technological upheaval. In fact, we might criticisms. We see that the virtual-real di- hours of Starcraft is meaningless without even say that play has been a driving force, chotomy hinders our understanding of comparing the number of deaths resulting given that it is often the main reason video games by assigning them an onto- directly from video games with the number (whether people care to admit it of fatal accidents that occur or not) for buying a new elecduring the pursuit of other leitronic device with more memsure activities (the average skiory, greater processing power, ing season, for example, is veribetter graphics and of course extably festooned with crape). In tra social cachet. other words, the fuss made over The video games industry the dangers has less to do with has witnessed an unprecedented an actual threat to life than with boom ever since the first comsocial relevance. At the same time, those who focus on the mercial game, Pong, appeared in 1972, ensuring that technologigaming habits of some serial ofcal progress has been accompafenders are ignoring the fact that nied by remarkable creativity. 99.99% of people who play CounJust as the invention of printing ter-Strike or other war games allowed card games to flourish, exhibit perfectly ordinary behavcomputers have brought about iour, thus contradicting any entirely new families of games The digital revolution has redefined play, an claims of direct causality. and enabled a profound evolution Finally, it is also instructive essential part of human existence. in the dynamics and social asto view such claims in the conDespite worries about addiction and denial, pects of play. text of their social utility: showcomputer games are firmly established casing addiction to gaming as a diagnostic category allows psyPassion versus taboo in 21st-century life: Pacman, Supermario While they have always chiatrists and psychologists alike and Sims, available round the clock, existed in one form or another, to target a new client base, while have become postmodern humanity’s the importance of games varies for their part parents and educaconstant companions. from one society to another. The tors often use the notion of adJudeo-Christian religions have diction as a blanket term for the often taken a critical attitude todistressing behaviour of the chilBy Thierry Wendling wards games, but a number of dren and young people under other traditional religions value their charge. them, for example including ritKeen to explore this brave ual games in their funeral ceremonies. logical nature that is radically different new world and largely spurred on by an onThat said, making generalizations about from that of all other experiences attrib- slaught of advertising and peer pressure, the relationship between society and uted to so-called “reality”, irrespective of children and teenagers were among the games seems fraught with difficulty. De- reality’s endless diversity. How exactly is first to embrace these novel passions. Parpending on the society in question, some our interaction with other players in a ents and teachers, therefore, have often games may be prized, others condemned video game more virtual and less real than found themselves in the difficult situation by the religious or political authorities but a phone call? How are the images in an on- of being simultaneously providers of comnevertheless practised with great passion, line game any different to those in an ani- puters, games consoles etc. and censors of others still neglected. Historical, techno- mated cartoon? Rather than claiming that practices they fear without really underlogical and economic developments also their very nature is radically different, it standing. affect the relationship. In the twentieth makes more sense to start with the notion The arrival of new generations of parcentury, for instance, sports amassed a that video games are entirely a product of ents, some of whom share their children’s huge following, which is reflected in the reality and to pay particular attention to enthusiasm for all things digital, the emer-

Homo ludens in the Age of Computer Games

Compu ter G am e s: th e ar t o f t h e fu t u r e

gence of less critical psychological opinions and the industry’s inexorable rise in terms of economic importance – it now makes more money than the film industry – have all conspired to embed video games firmly in the global cultural landscape. Video games today shape imaginations, redefine social orders and keep pace with technological and economic trends. From the silence of Sudoku to mythological warfare The above statement may belie the extreme diversity of games computers have brought us. A sudoku grid, a game of solitaire on your mobile phone, a band of play-

How exactly is our interaction with other players in a video game more virtual and less real than a phone call? ers battling mythical monsters in World of Warcraft – where is the common ground here? Where is the common ground between the tactical challenges posed by artificial intelligence when playing chess against a computer and the word games played among members of social networking sites? The common ground is purely technical: both are played out on a screen, both are controlled by the players’ hands. To put in another way, all electronic games make use of those eminently human tools, the eye and the hand, and all entail a close association between the ability to perceive representations and the will to carry out actions. In addition, the action itself is always taken through an intermediate medium, be it a keyboard, a mouse or a joystick, which is a good reflection of our cognitive predisposition towards linking the action to its anticipated result. All kinds of games are played out on our screens these days. There is such diversity, and the classification criteria vary so much, that we can at best make a few very general observations here. Many games that are now played electronically existed before the electronic age. Chess, poker and memory, together with all types of quiz, belong to the category of logical-mathematical games, which were easy to reproduce right from the early days of computer

programming. The substance of these games remains the same, but the social practices surrounding them and their affective and cognitive dimensions have been altered by the new media, most notably in that they can be played against a non-human opponent. Spectator sports and popular games have for their part inspired computer simulations, from ping-pong to football and motor racing. There is some continuity with regard to strategy, but the nature of the game is changed radically, for example, when we play football or tennis while seated comfortably on our sofas. While many traditional childhood games, such as tag, are not compatible with current video game logic, others within the broader repertoire of “cowboys and Indians” games have evolved in hitherto unimaginable ways that make them worthy of special attention. These games are governed by the principle of combat, the main goal being to destroy your opponent using guns, swords, spells or other weapons. The range extends from classic “shoot-’em-ups” to the most popular online game of all, World of Warcraft (WoW). As a player, all games offer you the enjoyment of imagining yourself as someone else, assuming a different role, becoming a champion or a superhero for just a short time. Children the world over have always liked to play at being a great hunter, conqueror or spaceman. In WoW, the player appears as an avatar and sets out, alone at first and later as part of a group, to confront all sorts of monsters in a fantasy mediaeval universe. It combines elements of war game and roleplaying, but the complexity, the way players interact and the presence of thousands of players all at once make this a completely new form of game. Last but not least, there are games that would have been more or less unthinkable before the advent of computers. Platform games, made popular by the characters Mario and Sonic, arcade games such as Pac-Man and games like Tetris – which might be termed “office games” because they are ideal for taking a short and perhaps surreptitious break from work – offer original forms of gameplay in which the player (or more specifically the player’s avatar or actions) is pitted against a constantly changing environment. These relatively simple, abstract games have been superseded by much

more sophisticated complex environment simulations, ranging from The Sims to Starcraft, in which the player controls a family, a town, a civilization or a “race” (a group of individuals sharing particular characteristics) and may have to contend with other players. Only a computer can process in real time the constant changes affecting the hundreds or thousands of objects that make up these universes. Boy slays monster, girl raises mice In the past forty years or so, a protean video games culture has emerged that comprises thousands of games, each appearing in a series of updated versions and adapted to suit the latest hardware (from arcade machines to personal computers, multi-game consoles and single-game variants like Tamagotchi, and more recently mobile phones). This cultural development is remarkable in its graphical and linguistic inventiveness. New life forms have been invented and given their own worlds to inhabit, allowing players to explore the landscapes of WoW or Second Life just as some people explore national parks. There is also a proliferation of neologisms relating to video games in general (with many spreading from English into other languages) and to individual games in particular. In the case of WoW, you might hear someone say, “I took him down in twenty-five with a DPS of 9.3k, he held out like boss.” This rich capacity for creat-

Many games that are now played electronically existed before the electronic age. ing new terminology that is incomprehensible to the uninitiated is testimony to the amount of time gamers spend not only playing, but also discussing games. The easy accessibility and immediacy of video games transforms the concepts of sociability and interaction. Using the language of French philosopher Blaise Pascal, we might say that everyone has permanent access to a palliative remedy for the modern complaints of solitude and boredom. Gaming is not hard work, but it conveys a wealth of emotions of all kinds. Teenage boys can vanquish terrorists or monsters, young girls can tend to a mouse or a pony, adults can spend a few moments on a Minesweeper-type game or a few hours on 33

Compu ter Gam e s: th e ar t o f t h e fu t u r e

a poker site betting real money. From game to game, we switch between simplistic graphical styles and eye-popping realism (insofar as we can call imaginary characters and landscapes realistic), but this only has a secondary impact on our enjoyment. Pong, in which the ball is represented by a single pixel, is as relevant today as ever because the essence of the game is to project yourself into its world. This explains how, despite the existence of titles like WoW, some people are rediscovering the charm of text-only adventure games. Interaction with other players takes on a special significance when they can only be perceived through their on-screen actions. Just like traditional masks, video game avatars are above all a means of projection and idealization. Players project a real or imagined facet of themselves while interpreting the signals projected by others. From this point of view, video games teach us how to find our bearings in a world ruled by information and communications technology where we converse with increasing numbers of non-human entities. Gamers learn to tell from an avatar whether they are dealing with a man or a woman, a hardcore or casual gamer, a person or a bot (short for robot) controlled by artificial intelligence. A number of factors are thus vying to explain the popularity of video games. We find playmates in them that are always available, perhaps mirroring how animals were first domesticated in prehistoric times on the basis of games. We are stimu-

In the words of Pascal, we might say that everyone has permanent access to a palliative remedy for the modern complaints of solitude and boredom. lated by their interactive nature and develop a very pragmatic sense that they are representations and a feeling for the forms of interaction that may be practised via representations vis-à-vis other people, be they real or virtual. In conclusion, we can see that video games are continuing to establish themselves as part of our culture in the twentyfirst century, inspiring artists and scientists alike. Classic games with iconic status, 34

the likes of Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Tetris, are being co-opted for street art installations and video performances. Their cultural and economic relevance is attested to by the appearance of schools teaching what some refer to as the “tenth art” (after cinema, television and animation). A whole new field of academia is taking shape under the heading “game studies”. Practically divorced from linguistic and cultural barriers, video games have become an emblematic component of global culture. Thierry Wendling works at the National Centre for Scientific Research in the Laboratory of Anthropology and History of Cultural Institutions, Paris. He casts an anthropologist’s eye over gaming through the ages – from chess via eating contests and all the way to computer games. Translated from the French by Mark O’Neil

Compu ter G am e s: T h e A r t o f t h e F u t u r e

Game Design from Switzerland The images in this issue’s dossier are a selection of final diploma work by the latest graduates of the Game Design programme at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

Colorize The aim of this cosmic game of marbles is to produce the correct chromatic mixtures. Players are awarded points for their dexterous colorization of floating spheres until they score the “keycode” for the next level. It isn’t all just beer & skittles though, as the act of colorizing can also awaken some awkward opponents… Colorize is a game for PC/Mac by Christoph Jörg.

Crowned Crowned is a game of strategy that humorously parodies the pomp and circumstance of over-the-top, mock-epic films, set in ancient Greece and featuring the requisite valiant exploits and battles. Its warfare, to be staged like a piece of theatre from various points of view and to maximum effect, is played half for laughs. Crowned is a game for PC/Mac by Gregor Falk.

Mirage Mirage has players construct a being out of human components, and thus create a surrealistic collage. It begins with nothing more than a hat, but with the gradual addition of further members – an eye, a nose, a mouth or a foot – the fata morgana slowly takes on its own individual character, and in the process grants its creator supplementary senses and abilities. Mirage is a game for PC/Mac by Mario von Rickenbach.

Daina’s Herbarium This adventure game invites players on a fairy tale expedition to an overgrown island. What mysterious power has compelled its quondam inhabitants to flee their ostensibly marvelous home? Collecting and preparing special herbs, flowers and mushrooms helps make the voyage through the island’s bush and tall grass a little easier. Intended primarily for children, the painstakingly handcrafted game aims at awakening a thirst for discovery and narrative. A game for PC/Mac by Dario Hardmeier and Raffaele de Lauretis.

Icebox Carrots What happens when the light goes out in the refrigerator? The contents do not simply go to sleep – no, it gets pretty spooky in the sombre icebox, with carrots that come to life and creatures emerging from the deep freeze, their sights set on the vitamin-filled veggies hiding behind the milk, butter and eggs. Icebox Carrots is linked directly to Facebook, where invited players show up as carrots. Icebox Carrots is an online browser game by Michael Burgdorfer available on Facebook.

Beat Fleet Working with the turntable-engine on Beat Fleet enables players to harmonize music, space and time by operating two DJ phonographs and controlling the speed of the beats and the constanly evolving landscape of abstract shapes, colours and music with a wave of their hands. The game by Philip Kostovic is played on PC/Mac but controlled by way of two turntables that in turn run the computer.

For information see http://gamedesign.zhdk.ch/bachelor/10

L oC AL TIME

Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, maintains offices around the world in order to promote cultural exchange with Switzerland and to expand cultural networks.

SAN FR AN C IS C o N E w yo R K PAR IS RoME wAR SAw C AIR o C APE T o w N N E w dE LH I SH AN G H AI

Chopin’s Oriental Adventure: A Modern-Day Fantaisie

Shades of Orientalist rock: Klara Bielawka plays the lute like an electric guitar.

Christian Garcia, an experimental pop musician from Western Switzerland, stages a “contemporary opera” inspired by Polish folk hero Frederic Chopin in Warsaw: the ménage was unexpected enough for our correspondent to attend rehearsals.

“The Polish members of the company think I’m nuts” Christian Garcia is the director of the tribute to Chopin and its sole musician. The organizers of the Warszawa Centralna festival, who commissioned the piece, had adored the previous work by Garcia’s trio Velma, Requiem, shown in Warsaw in 2008. The bicentenary of the birth of the nation’s idol is the only game in town this cultural season, with innumerable concerts and appearances by renowned pianists planned, public benches on Nowy Swiat, an attractive Warsaw street, that play Chopin when you sit down on them – and the performance by the “Swiss” enjoying its own place on the jubilee calendar. “Chopin is a

Photos: Tomasz Dubiel

By Florence Gaillard, Warschau – The train crosses the Vistula and arrives at Teatr Dramatyczny’s woodworking shop, where the sets for Glissando are in construction. It’s the dog days of August, and opening night is still a long way off. Director and musician Christian Garcia, his stage designer Serge Perret and the Polish carpenter are discussing angles to be rounded off and the correct method of spreading foam over a giant horse’s head. Inside the Teatr Dramatyczny, which is located in a wing of the monumental tower that was Stalin’s gift to Warsaw in 1955, the aging walls are still covered in the dust of the last great upheaval. Hated by the majority of Poles, the Soviet colossus nevertheless presents an intriguingly poetic show of neon and endless corridors.

part of my musical history, no more and no less than any other composer,” explains Christian, who started out on the saxophone and has done stints as an adherent of punk, rock and pop as well as completing classical training. “But I would never do a show focused on his personality, or some kind of cross-over. I’m not interested in recreating historical figures on stage, cinema does it much better. For me, theatre is a place for chance encounters, for more ephemeral moments.” So there’s no tubercular protagonist with an unruly mop of hair in Glissando, nor is there much text, or any dialogue at all. What you will find, though, is Chopin’s music. Garcia has gone to the source, to Chopin’s scores, and used them as the basis for his tableaus. His troupe of nine (Swiss, French, Spanish, Italian and Polish actors) do not so much play roles as embody a song, a performance or Julia Kijowska and Gianfranco Poddighe in the opera’s dire finale. a dance. “At this stage in the rehearsals,” says Stéphane Noël, Glissan- terrifying and exhilarating to abandon do’s producer and dramatic advisor, “there oneself this way.” is a rift between the actors who have already worked with Christian and those Chopin with a twist The word glissando describes a who haven’t, and the latter may find it all a bit confusing. So what we have to do is method of connecting notes on the piano devise a common language.” The musician typical of Chopin. The idea is to glide, and agrees: “The Polish members of the com- Garcia wants more than just the notes glidpany think I’m nuts. I don’t give them a ing: the whole show segues from a theme text to base their performance on. I ask of Chopin’s to an improv, to a cappella, Orithem to sing and to move, but it isn’t really entalist imagery and rock music. Take the a dance we’re putting on, nor a concert, Polish composer’s Etude n°6, op. 10, for innor a musical.” A contemporary opera per- stance. Formidable when played on the pihaps? Garcia is comfortable with compar- ano, it also strikes terror into the hearts of isons to such figures as Christoph Mar- the Glissando chorus, and it takes an imthaler and Heiner Goebbels. Glissando peccable ear not to go astray in the labycan be located somewhere among their rinth of semitones. “Chopin is always singgalaxies, with a certain slowness and sense ing,” notes Julia, “but I find this a cappella of floating. Julia Kijowska, a young star of version a particular challenge. I’m used to the Polish stage working on the Chopin following the folk elements, which have project, puts it like this: “In Glissando I now disappeared completely.” The melody need to learn to do nothing, which is the then takes a turn to musical meditation, a most difficult thing I’ve ever been asked to nebulous psalmody, occasionally sublime, do! I feel like I’m transparent: as soon as I that determines what happens to the voices attempt the least attitude, it rings false. It’s in Glissando: by turns in chorus and solo,

but always part of the whole. Glissando is Chopin mixed with Glenn Branca and a pinch of Arvo Pärt: in other words, minimalist, though not entirely. In one of the tableaus, the air is suddenly invaded by nine ouds, played by some of the company like an electric guitar, by others like a harp, depending on their particular bent. And then of course there’s the visual lushness of the piece. Chopin was an admirer and friend of Delacroix, and the stage set is accordingly inspired by La Mort de Sardanapale and other of the French painter’s luxurious canvases. “For the past ten years I’ve been doing shows in which the actors wore sneakers and the nudity was pretty coarse,” recalls Garcia. “What I was looking for here was warmth and aestheticism.” For a preview, there are the sketches done by Aga, the young costume designer with pink eyebrows. But will the Poles stand for seeing their hero en route to an experimental orient? “We’re willing to take the risk,” says Julia Asperska, charged with the festival’s international PR. “All we ask for is freedom. In Poland Chopin is a an icon of national stature. His music is in our DNA, like the scent of pierogi, and yet of course there are still things that haven’t been said about it. We’re going to be serving up a radically nouveau Chopin!” Glissando, 16 to 19 December 2010 in Warsaw, 18 to 19 March 2011 at l’Espace Nuithonie, Fribourg. Florence Gaillard worked as a cultural and society journalist at Le Temps from 2001 to 2008 and launched Le Phare, the magazine of the Swiss Cultural Centre in Paris, in 2009. She was the editor-in-chief for the first five issues before becoming an independent journalist. Translated from the French by Rafaël Newman

L oC AL TIME

The Swiss Cultural Centre in Paris has turned its library into a bookshop, where visitors can purchase works on art and architecture, read the newspapers, or discover rarities from Switzerland.

from French schools of graphic design.” Swiss books now have their own store in the Marais. But the CCS bookshop is not a showcase for Switzerland – you won’t find tourist guides or history books here. Instead, it focuses on the creative arts, with something for every graphic artist or lover of contemporary art, design and Swiss lit. “Books on architecture sell very well, de-

Shelves like Alpine glaciers: the new bookshop at the CCS, by Jakob + MacFarlane

By Florence Gaillard, Paris – “What I like about Switzerland is that you really know how to make books.” Emmanuelle Brom has heard this often since the Swiss Cultural Centre (CCS) bookshop in Paris opened last May. Brom, a bookseller-cumfairy godmother, also faces questions like “Why isn’t there any milk for the coffee?” Swiss publishers are well respected among Parisian visitors: “There’s a sense of prestige, a clear level of public recognition,” Brom notes. “You only have to look at the annual exhibition Les beaux libres suisses (The Beauty of Swiss Books), held at the CCS and elsewhere, whose thousands of visitors include many students 38

spite their price,” says Brom. “Swiss typography is a safe bet too. And then there are the stars, like Robert Frank – the classics you find in any Swiss bookshop.” The shop is a great success, with some 1200 visitors a month during the summer it opened its doors. For 25 years, 32 rue des Francs-Bourgeois was home to a reference library. It had its regulars but few came in on the off chance. “A lot of people are only just finding out about us. It’s as if the location had been revealed.” Indeed, Olivier Kaeser and Jean-Paul Felley, the Centre’s directors, set about revitalizing the library. “The site looks out on one of the busiest streets in the Marais,” ex-

plains Kaeser. “We wanted to recreate a space that was open, light, welcoming and vibrant.” The new design has effectively reconnected the CCS with its street, and with the art world of today. For Brom, “the bookshop is a direct link to the contemporary scene and today’s Switzerland. It also reflects the CCS’s offerings of exhibitions and living art, as well as providing a proper home for rare editions and artists’ works.” And there’s more than just print: the shop also stocks CDs and DVDs recommended in Le Phare, the house journal, as well as works on the artists (not all of them Swiss) showing at the CCS. “People who enjoy our exhibitions come in here afterwards to prolong the experience, settle down with a good book or catch up on the programmes for festivals and other exhibition venues.” The project architects – French-Swiss Dominique Jakob and New Zealander Brendan MacFarlane – have created a space that is both radical and subtle. The duo, known as JakMac, already have several such projects to their name, including the Fondation Ricard and the future FRAC Centre in Orléans. For the CCS, they thought in terms of lightness and purity. The shelves, cut into irregular shapes, remind some of Alpine glaciers, and they’re a breath of fresh air for both visitors and books. Further expansion is planned. “More films and records, I hope. And more design, in the form of books and other objects.” What about milk? “We have a café area but I wouldn’t necessarily call this place a café bookshop,” says Brom. Still, the CCS espresso is a hit with readers of newspapers (Swiss and French) or architecture and design mags. And there’s always enough milk. 32 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, Tue–Fri 10 am – 6 pm, Sat–Sun 1 pm – 7 pm. Florence Gaillard worked as a journalist on the daily newspaper Le Temps (culture and society sections) from 2001 to 2008. She launched Le Phare, the journal of the CCS, in 2009, and edited the first five issues. She now works as a freelance editor. Translated from the French by Geoffrey Spearing Photo: Marc Domage

A Reader’s Treasure Trove in the Marais

PAR TN ER : KULTURS TIFTU NG LANdIS & GyR

Pioneering Cultural Sponsorship of the neighbourhood’s Bangladeshi curry houses reads like a Who’s Who of the Swiss cultural scene. The artists Annelies Štrba, Carmen Perrin and Christine Streuli were in residence for a year, as were the photoartists Thomas Flechtner, Walter Pfeiffer and Hans Danuser, and the writers Lukas Bärfuss, Markus Werner, Peter Stamm and Peter Weber. The over 160 Swiss artists who have spent a year – or a semester – at one of the studios since 1988 owe their opportunity to the Zug-based Landis & Gyr cultural foundation, which back in the 1980s acquired five typically British terraced houses in London’s multicultural East End and has since made them available for Swiss artists to spend some time abroad.

Illustration: Raffinerie

Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr is one of the most important private sponsors of the arts in Switzerland. The Zug-based cultural foundation has also pioneered guest residences in major European cities and an exchange programme with Eastern Europe. By Brigitte Ulmer – Most Swiss artists who have spent time at the studios on Smithy Street in London’s East End describe their sojourn there as a formative experience. Writer Tim Krohn calls his residency in East London “one of the most valuable periods of my life.” Painter Uwe Wittwer waxes lyrical about the inspirational environment, the magnificent studio with its glass roof, and the opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange with his neighbours. The list of guests who have lived, worked and slept here amid the spicy scent

CHF 2.5 million for culture each year The atelier programme has since expanded to include nine other projects in Berlin, Budapest, Bucharest and Zug. The artist’s residencies are a key element of the Landis & Gyr foundation’s work supporting arts and culture, and they are offered to artists from the visual arts, musical composition, photography, literature and cultural criticism. Free use of the facilities, together with an allowance toward living costs, offers a respite from the daily working routine and an opportunity to be creative without having to worry about results: the artists are not required to produce anything in return. The foundation’s model broke new ground. “In the early eighties the cities and cantons had none of the ateliers abroad that they do today. We found a niche and filled it,” recalls Regula Koch, director of the Landis & Gyr cultural foundation. The Zugbased firm Landis & Gyr, which specializes in manufacturing electricity meters, established the foundation in 1971 with an initial capital of CHF 7.5 million, originally to finance art for its business premises. Over the years, the objective shifted toward cultural funding and substantial sums of money were added, until in 1988 the company was

sold and the foundation spun off as an independent body. Today, the foundation provides CHF 2.5 million per year, out of its total capital of around CHF 50 million, to artists and institutions. “We promote work that is new, young, experimental” The second core element of the foundation’s work is exchange with Central and Eastern Europe. The emphasis is on support for Institutes for Advanced Study of the humanities and social sciences, in Bucharest, Budapest and Sofia. This enables between 20 and 25 young scholars and future professors to undertake further research following their university studies. The subject matter can range from urban planning to Romanian cinema or a study of society under the Ceaus¸escu regime: the research covers both the past and the present. “Through our financial support, we contribute to reforming and improving the education system from the top down,” says Regula Koch. Appointed as director of the foundation half a year ago, she is a former cultural affairs officer for the canton of Zug and knows the world of arts funding inside out. Between 750 and 850 requests for sponsorship cross her desk each year; after an initial triage, she evaluates them together with a jury of experts. “Applications range from amateur choirs to opera house productions,” she explains. Inevitably, many of the requests have to be turned down, and a great deal of administration is involved. Priority is given to projects by artists who are already working with institutions. Venues such as the Neumarkt Theatre and the Schauspielhaus Zürich, the Lucerne Theater and the Théâtre Vidy in Lausanne receive funding for special productions created by young artists. “We mainly promote work that is new, young and experimental,” explains Regula Koch. “A production of La Traviata can easily attract sponsorship from the private sector. It’s more difficult for works that are unknown and innovative.” www.kulturstiftung-lg.ch Brigitte Ulmer is a historian and art journalist. She writes for publications including Du and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Translated from the German by Geoffrey Spearing

I M P R ESSUM

PAS S AGES o N LIN E

N E XT ISSU E

Publisher: Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council www.prohelvetia.ch

Passages The Cultural Magazine of Pro Helvetia online: www.prohelvetia.ch/passages/en

Cultural Outreach Abroad Whether it involves an artist’s foreign residency, an international theatrical troupe or showcasing a given country at a book fair, cultural outreach across national borders and between continents broadens horizons. But how do such exchanges look in an era of multiculturalism and globalization? When can they be said to be sustainable? And what role does cultural outreach play in diplomatic affairs? Read all about it in the next issue of Passages, in which we drop in on a SwissArgentine theatre production in Buenos Aires, report on cultural stumbling blocks in exchanges with China, and pay a visit to the Pro Helvetia branch office in New Delhi. The next Passages will appear in late April 2011.

Pro Helvetia News Current projects, programmes and competitions: www.prohelvetia.ch

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Passages Recent Issues: Art Will Make You Happy! No. 53

Kunst macht glücklich! Bekenntnisse in der Petrischale: Der Künstler im Labor S. 6 Sprechende Wände: Schweizer Klangkunst in San Francisco S. 36 Rom inspiriert: Die Zeit in Kunst verwandeln S. 38 D A S K U LT U R M A G A Z I N V O N P R O H E LV E T I A , N R . 5 3 , A U S G A B E 2 / 2 0 1 0

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On the Art of Translation No. 52

Die Redewender: Zur Kunst des Übersetzens Alice im Zululand: Berner Musiker auf Afrika-Tournee S. 6 Transatlantische Wahlverwandtschaft: Adolf Dietrich in New York S. 38 Kunst im öffentlichen Raum: Die eierlegende Wollmilchsau S. 41 D A S K U LT U R M A G A Z I N V O N P R O H E LV E T I A , N R . 5 2 , A U S G A B E 1 / 2 0 1 0

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Intro(se)duction to the Arts No. 51

Die Kunst(ver)führer Neue Aussichten: Kunst geht bergwärts S. 6 Warschau: Alltagsgeschichten für die Bühne S. 36 Kunst in der Krise: Optimismus um jeden Preis S. 41 D A S K U LT U R M A G A Z I N V O N P R O H E LV E T I A , N R . 5 1 , A U S G A B E 3 / 2 0 0 9

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v IEwPo IN T

Illustration: Aurel Märki

Where Is César Aira?

By Christoph Simon – What am I doing in Buenos Aires, a city of 13 million inhabitants, me, a writer from the tranquil town of Bern? My official mission is to discern the customs and mores of the local literati and prepare an objective report for the Frankfurt book fair during Argentina’s tenure as guest country; in truth, however, I have a rather different reason for my forays into the grime and glitter of Buenos Aires: I am in quest of César Aira, the brilliant author of Varamo, to whom I wish to make obeisance, and in the absence of frankincense and myrrh present with a kilo of Swiss chocolate. You don’t learn much about César Aira from the dustflaps of his books: “Nacio en Coronel Pringles en febrero de 1949. Desde 1967 reside en Buenos Aires.” So it’s anyone’s guess what I’ll be able to find out about the mysterious fellow. Who is he, where does he live? And above all, where is he right now? Gustavo, my taxi driver from the airport into town, doesn’t know Aira.

Paula, my cleaning lady, would rather talk about he family in Bolivia than the nocturnal, Panamanian enlightenment of civil servant Varamo in Panama. The owner of a used bookstore in Huemul, in the province of Santa Fe, climbs an eight-rung ladder to get to the “A”s, but he’s no help with geography. From members of the Argentine Authors’ Society I hear that Aira rarely receives visitors and almost never goes out. We are chatting at the Cafe Bar La Poesia in the San Telmo district following a diálogo abierto. “Every Wednesday César has a cognac at the bar on the corner and plays chess for a few hours with the nobs from Flores…” Liliana, Noemi and Ester, who are drinking beer out of litre bottles, recommend that I visit Eterna Cadencia, at Honduras 5574, because that’s where Aira goes to buy books. And indeed, although every cuadra in Buenos Aires boasts a bookstore (selling both new and used books), ask anyone –

the librarian at the Goethe Institute or novelists Ariel Magnus and Alan Pauls, for instance – and you’ll be told to head for Eterna Cadencia when you need food for thought. But that Thursday, having trekked out to Palermo, I still manage to miss the great man – they regret to inform me – by half an hour. “Why can’t I meet César Aira?” I ask Ariel Magnus, a writer’s writer: productive, clever and translated into Romanian, Hebrew and Chinese. “The quest for César is a demanding one,” murmurs Don Ariel, “and the road is littered with failures.” On Tuesday at nine I present my Bolivian char with a little snack in the form of a kilo of Swiss chocolate. “Gracias,” she responds. “Are you leaving today? Did you meet that writer you were looking for?” “César Aira? No. I was afraid the encounter would just be disappointing for both of us: César would be lying on the sofa, his legs up, rubbing his ankles together, and he would look up from his book to glare in annoyance at the disturbance of the peace.” “Nonsense! He’s bound to have friends over at all hours, having a high old time sitting around and looking forward to telling everyone what they’ve been doing!” Nothing looks the same when you come home from another world. Why do we keep our new and used bookstores apart? Why aren’t whole schoolclasses dragged along to our readings? And in general, why do all of our streetlamps work? Why is it so quiet here at midnight? Why are there no bars on the windows? For a while, your return is enlivened by such musings: you miss someone you haven’t met, and at night it feels as if you’re sleeping over in your own town. Christoph Simon’s latest novel is Spaziergänger Zbinden. In May of 2010 he was writer-inresidence in Buenos Aires. He lives in Bern. Translated from the German by Rafaël Newman

G AL L ER y

A Showcase for Artists “Rothis Western City”, 2005 Photo by Yann Gross from the series Horizonville The photo series Horizonville gives us the “American Way of Life” in its Swiss version. While touring the Rhône Valley in the canton of Valais on his moped, photographer Yann Gross of Western Switzerland created a sort of ethnographic portrait study of people living their own American Dream far from the Rocky Mountains. In his work, Yann Gross, who graduated from the ECAL (École Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne) in 2007, focuses mainly on issues of identity. In 2008 he won the Descubrimiento Prize at the PhotoEspaña Festival. A book has appeared this year with JRP/ Ringier to accompany his Horizonville solo show. www.yanngross.com

“How exactly is our interaction with other players in a video game more virtual and less real than a phone call?” Homo ludens in the Age of Computer Games Thierry Wendling, p. 32

“Other children’s parents were in the free churches, my father was with IBM. They have a lot in common.” The World Is Not Enough Nicolette Kretz, p. 12

“The culture debate wins over the violence debate, because it offers a positive perspective rather than one based on banning something.” “Without prototype funding, nothing will happen” Malte Behrmann, p. 28

“Seen this way, the video game is the technical fulfillment of the fantasy of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the revelation of a Art of Immersion transmedial, synaesthetic sensory apparatus.” The Martin Burckhardt, p. 24 www.prohelvetia.ch/passages/en

Pro Helvetia supports and promotes Swiss culture in Switzerland and throughout the world.