ACTION! On the Filmed City Video Games

In the 1970s and 80s, rudimentary video games emerged as entertainment for the middle classes. 40 years later and more ubiquitous than ever before, they are now more than that: an alternative mode of experiencing reality. We will explore various experiments between video gaming, architecture, and audiovisual storytelling to understand how virtual 'gaming' can articulate reality in novel ways.

Through a combination of practical exercises in video and audio techniques in parallel with the study of seminal observation-driven texts, this course aims to equip students with the basic tools and core principles to create short but complex experiments reflecting on urban space. This semester, the focus falls on the topic of video games, asking students to think about how filmmaking and digital animation skills may be used to tap into the multi-faceted possibilities presented by contemporary video gaming.

Using widely available recording tools and editing software, students will turn their fieldwork into short video or audio works of about 3-5 minutes.