PLAY16 - Creative Gaming Festival

The exhibition “Game Culture Hamburg” (October 2016 until April 2017) is all about games and developers from Hamburg. Visitors can take a look at the wall of portraits with people from Hamburg’s gaming industry, play games of schools and universities from Hamburg and play the games of the Creative Gaming Award. Moreover, there will be many “classical” pieces of art.

The exhibition Game Culture Hamburg is part of the Game Masters exhibition at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg.

Games can be immensly immersive – just like books. At the exhibition taking place in the library, this topic is the focus: The first connected Escape Room “TWO / ZERO / ONE” invites visitors to be part of an experiment as a group. Furthermore, the biggest VR room of PLAY16 displays “Unseen Diplomacy”, where players have to escape as a spy without being seen, or can draw in three dimensions with “Tilt Brush”.

Game and Body. The exhibitions of PLAY16 – Creative Gaming festival deal with representation of bodies and nodies as controllers.

Instead of ideal heroes, there are many diverse figures with everyday looks, strenghhs and weaknesses as well as minor or major disabilities. Especially their experiences, sexuality and contact with the environment offer interesting contrasts to usual scenarios. Their perspectives are common and something one can identify with.

The success of virtual reality increases the change of perspective. The player becomes the virtual body, can view something through someone else’s eyes or completely replaces the characters in a game. Apart from VR, there are many colorful games that offer new approaches on controlling and invite players to perform. Is therefore the game controlling the body or the person directly controlling the game?

The last festival day foregrounds the family: Open workshops invite everyone to play, discover and participate. Creating an alternative controller with your grandmother? Playing your favorite game with mum? Or discovering street games with dad? Sunday is play-day and offers plenty of opportunities to talk and play. Whether it is gmae design with scratch, various stations of the ComputerSpielSchile Hamburg, creating games things, developing new controllers with Makey Makey or the JAM! feedback and throwback on the festival itself – the family day offers many diverse ideas.

The Family Day will take place at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe as well as Kunsthaus Hamburg. For more information on where each station will be there are further information below.

This exhibition represents the core of all the PLAY16 exhibitions. It deals with “Bodies in Games” and “Bodies as Controller”, demonstrating the spectrum of the festival. Here, visitors can experience virtual reality and the history of the medium as well as inspiring installations.