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The high number demonstrates the strong interest in a congress of this kind. Following the great success of the premiere in spring 2006, Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Electronic Arts are once again jointly organising the conference.
‘Computer games are now a phenomenon affecting society as a whole. They are an important part of leisure activities, just like television or music,’ explains conference director Prof. Dr Winfred Kaminski of Cologne University of Applied Sciences. ‘It is therefore important for the research community concerned with interactive entertainment software to be able to exchange its experiences across disciplines. At the second edition of “Clash of Realities”, the experts are being given precisely this opportunity.’ Thomas Zeitner, Managing Director of Electronic Arts Germany, comments: ‘As a representative of the world’s leading company in the field of interactive entertainment software, I am very eager to see what new findings academia has discovered about the effects of games.’ Zeitner continues: ‘The conference premiere in 2006 showed how useful it is to approach the subject of computer games from an academic perspective.’
Experts from different disciplines such as psychology, medicine, sociology and education will present their research findings in Cologne. Compared with the first conference in 2006, the proportion of international speakers has been increased. Guests include, for example, well-known game theorist Jesper Juul of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who will also give the opening lecture ‘Video Games: The most Emotional of all Media’. US linguist and author James Pau Gee (Arizona State University) will speak on ‘Learning, Design, and Society: Games and Beyond’.
At the start of the conference on March 5, presenter Conny Czymoch will talk with Peter Kloeppel (Editor-in-Chief, RTL Television) about current media developments. In the subsequent panel discussion ‘Does society play with games or do games play with society?’, Thomas Krüger (Federal Agency for Civic Education), Olaf Zimmermann (German Cultural Council), Ulrich Krapp (1Live) and conference director Prof. Dr Winfred Kaminski will discuss the influence of games on everyday life.
Participation in ‘Clash of Realities’ is free. Interested parties can register online at http://www.fh-koeln.de/clash-of-realities.
