International conference: “Leisure electronics and the emergence of video games”

2 and 3 May 2024

On-site: in room Amphimax 414 on UNIL Campus, Lausanne, Switzerland
On-line: on Zoom and discord (links to come)

Co-organized by the GameLab UNIL-EPFL and the research project Confoederatio Ludens, with the support of the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lausanne

Conference program

DAY 1 – 2 May 2024

08:30 Welcoming and registration – in front of the conference room

09:00 Opening speech – Pierre-Yves Hurel & Sophie Bémelmans

09:30 OPENING KEYNOTE:

Alex Wade (Birmingham City University) – Genealogies of videogame production, consumption and distribution in the English Midlands (Online) – Moderator: Yannick Rochat

10:30 Coffee Break – in front of the conference room

10:45 PANEL 1: Local contexts – Moderator: Guillaume Guenat

• A. Gabrielyan (Université de Lausanne) and T. Vaillancourt (University of Konstanz / Paris Nanterre) – The intermedial and cultural genealogy of Nu, Pogodi! in the USSR, or why a clone is not just a clone (On-site)
• R. Seiwald (University of Birmingham) – Happy Birthday, Tetris! Tracing the Game’s History within a Genealogy of Ludic Practices (On-site)
• M. Conrad (University St. Gallen) – United by Code: The Cultural Impact of BASIC as a Glocalized Coding Language for Gaming Communities in East and West Germany during the 1980s (On-site)

12:15 Lunch Break – Amphimax cafeteria

13:45 PANEL 2: Learning Games Initiative Research Archive’s (LGIRA) – Moderator: Selim Krichane

• J. Ruggill (University of Arizona) – A Genealogy of Preservation (On-site)
• K. McAllister (University of Arizona) – Local Hacking: Gaming Newsletters (On-site)
• R. Nohr (Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig) – The Ludic History of Business Simulations (Online)

15:15 Coffee Break

15:30 PANEL 3: Coding & platforms genealogy – Moderator: Sophie Bémelmans

• A. Demleitner (Bern University of the Arts) – Programming and Becoming – Tracing video game programming practices in 1980 and -90ies’ Switzerland (On-site)
• D. Murphy (Staffordshire University) – Platforms, Portable Consumer Electronics, and the Making of Sony’s PSP (Online)
• T. Boellstorff and B. Soderman (University of California, Irvine) – From Toys to Technology: Mattel, Intellivision, and the Domestication of Videogames (Online)

DAY 2 – 3 May 2024

09:00 Welcoming – in front of the conference room

09:30 PANEL 4: Within and beyond borders – Moderator: Arno Görgen

• L. Lima and T. Marttila (Interactive Technologies Institute, Lisbon) – From the Arcade Room to Portuguese Homes: An Analysis of the Early Computer Games Made in Portugal (1983-1992) (Online)
• L. Wild and D. Krummenacher (Zurich University of the Arts, University of Lausanne) – National Games : Looking beyond national borders (On-site)

10:30 Coffee Break – in front of the conference room

11:00 PANEL 5: Writing of history studies – Moderator: Eugen Pfister

• E. Swietlik (C2DH, University of Luxembourg) – Narratives of video game history in amateur museums (On-site)
• B. Krywicki (Liège Game Lab, Université de Liège) – An inescapable period of hindsight? Journalistic investigation as a way of raising awareness of the cultural and historical value of the first video games (On-site)

12:00 Lunch Break – Amphimax cafeteria

13:30 PANEL 6: Discourse and paratexts – Moderator: Aurelia Brandenburg

• M. Wagnières (University of Lausanne) – Learning to play video games in the emerging home market: A typology of paper manual functions in the 1980s (On-site)
• R. Bootes (Freelance researcher) – User Generated Content as representation and regulation – reader’s letters, and the early UK gaming magazine (Online)
• F. Lavigne (LUDOV, Université de Montréal) and C. Personnic (Université de Montréal) – Genealogies of 3D games: a conversation around the Sony Playstation (Online)

15:00 Coffee Break – in front of the conference room

15:30 ENDING KEYNOTE:

Maria Garda (CoE, University of Turku) – Late but not least: lateness in video games history (On-site) – Moderator: Mela Kocher

16:30 Acknowledgements and Closure speech – Pierre-Yves Hurel and Guillaume Guenat

EXTRA-LIFE : DAY 3 – 4 May 2024

A visit to the Swiss Museum of Games (La Tour-de-Peilz) will be organized on Saturday morning, 4 May. Please contact Pierre-Yves Hurel for further information.

 

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