Gaming, Body and Civic Realms

Lecture-workshop with artist Nina Davies, curator of Arts Technologies at Serpentine Gallery Tamar Clarke-Brown, researcher and experimental game-maker Leland Masek.  

14th April | 9.30–16.00 | Aalto University, Experimental Studio 1, Marsio Building (Otakaari 2, Espoo)

Hosted by M-Cult in collaboration with Aalto University’s Game Design and Development and New Media programmes, this lecture-workshop brings together students, artists and arts professionals, as well as gaming industry professionals to explore the civic and artistic potential of digital gaming. 

The event is part of the Gaming the Civic programme and learning series developing digital gaming’s embodied and immersive qualities as tools for dialogue, collective action and new forms of public engagement.

In the lecture-workshop we will first hear three talks by artist Nina Davies, writer, artist and curator Tamar Clarke-Brown and researcher Leland Masek engaging gaming, and its societal and artistic potentials. They open up how gaming and emerging technologies can operate in society for public good, body’s mimicry of computational processes and artistic rhetoric in the making of games. In the afternoon, participants will discuss and develop ideas around how art and gaming can activate participation across different public realms.

Morning Sessions | Talks | 9.30–12.30 |

Tamar Clarke-Brown: Games as Civic Engines 

This talk introduces the work of Serpentine Galleries Arts Technologies, a unique department established in 2013 to investigate the impact of technology through art, experimental cultural projects and research. 

The department explores the role of advanced technologies - including AI, blockchain and gaming - as a tool for new possibilities in artistic production, innovative forms of public engagement, creative R&D processes and alternative operating models for cultural institutions. Across these strands, Arts Technologies explores how emerging technologies can operate in society for public good, understanding technology as a medium, and working with collaborators at the forefront of artistic, technological and societal discourse to prototype new ways forward. Arts Technologies commissions focuses on building experimental tools, capabilities, protocols and infrastructure. 

In this talk, we will explore key gaming projects, with focus on the programme’s most recent commissions - Gabriel Massan's Third World: The Bottom Dimension and Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley's THE DELUSION.

Nina Davies: Dancing for the Algorithm

Next, artist Nina Davies introduces her interdisciplinary practice, in which she considers emerging dance practices of today as the traditional dances of the future. Focusing on her work Precursing, Davies explores choreography within predictive, data-driven environments, where movement is not only expressive but anticipated, modelled, and circulated across digital systems. Engaging with the body’s mimicry of computational processes, she reflects on how gesture can operate within socio-technical infrastructures – becoming a site of communication with emergent technologies that extends beyond language.

Leland Masek: Ludic Inquiry

How games as interactive fictions shape personal experience and meaning?

In this talk we dive into an interactive exploration of artistic rhetorics in the making of games, alongside an introduction of the Lucid Inquiry project. Ludic Inquiry is an arts-research methodology that considers games as experiential artistic research questions and player behavior as a form of research response. 

Afternoon Session | Workshop | 13.30–16.00 | 

In small groups, participants will discuss and develop ideas around how art and gaming can activate participation across different public realms. What societal questions games can and should take up? Who can they reach and in what contexts? What different gaming experiences and genres can contribute to civic life?  

Please sign up to the workshop here: → [link]

Access: 

Aalto University
Experimental Studio 1 (Room 3430)
Marsio Building (3rd Floor)
Otakaari 2
Espoo

Marsio building, 3rd floor. Entrance through the main door. There will be signs guiding you to the room.

The building is located approximately 150 meters from the Aalto University metro station. The closest accessible parking is available approximately 20 meters from the main entrance (Otakaari 1).

The space is accessible with a wheelchair and there is an elevator available.

There is an accessible toilet on the same floor as the workshop location.

You don’t need to have previous experience with games to participate in the workshop.

Speakers info: 

Tamar Clarke-Brown

Tamar Clarke-Brown is a writer, artist and curator (Arts Technologies, Serpentine) who commissions artworks and R&D projects engaged with experimental worldbuilding and the civic potential of technologies. Her work centres storytelling, diasporic practices, and overlooked imaginaries. Recent work includes the widely touring video game project Third World: The Bottom Dimension conceptualised by Brazilian artist Gabriel Massan, and THE DELUSION, a multiplayer gaming-performance project addressing polarisation and censorship led by artist, game designer and archivist Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Tamar is a 2024-5 NEW INC mentor, Dazed 100 (2021) and has presented with institutions including ICA, Tate, Yale, Somerset House, NTS Radio and more. 

Nina Davies

Nina Davies (b. 1991) is a Canadian-British artist who considers the present moment through observing dance in popular culture and how it is disseminated, circulated, made, and consumed. Previous research projects have included; the recent commodification of the dancing body on digital platforms and rethinking dances of today as traditional dances of the future. Oscillating between the use of fiction and non-fiction, her work helps build new critical frameworks for engaging with dance practices. Her work has recently been exhibited at Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art; FACT, Liverpool; Western Front, Vancouver; Artspace, Sydney; Future Gallery; Berlin and she has performed her work at venues such as Tate Britain, Somerset House and The Photographers Gallery in London. In 2021, she co-founded Future Artefacts FM, an artist-run program that showcases artists working with speculative fiction for broadcast which she co-hosts with artist Niamh Schmidtke and curator Rebecca Edwards.

Leland Masek

Leland Masek is a researcher and experimental game-maker. He directs the Games As Art Center in Tampere Finland, which has hosted 350 playful and artistic events since fall 2023. He has published 17 articles and book chapters and designed 40 game events across 5 countries in a 14-year career. He studies playfulness as wellbeing and Ludic Inquiry as an arts-research praxis. In directing the GAAC, he has led collaborations with 28 institutions, 93 artists/researchers, and given 13 invited talks. 

About Gaming the Civic 

Gaming the Civic is M-Cult's programme bringing together media art, game design, critical thinking, and the gaming industry. It supports artists creating works that use digital games and emerging technologies to involve people as active participants in public realm. Rather than observing from the sidelines, audiences are invited to play, interact, and contribute. 

Gaming the Civic is supported by the Alfred Kordelin Foundation and AVEK Audiovisual Centre. Tamar Clarke-Brown’s visit in Helsinki is organised in collaboration with Frame Contemporary Art Finland.