RE-IMAGINED: VIDEO GAMES AS CULTURE.

Hi everybody:jester: ,

The RE-IMAGED: VIDEO GAMES AS CULTURE program and it overarching BUDi film and video festival took place from Wednesday to Friday (4/25-4/27) and the event turned out very nicely! For some general, albeit cheerleader-ish impressions of the festival, check out www.budi.org and click to the English section (top of page) and navigate to the photo section.

Quite a lot of students, a handful of invited international filmmakers and smattering of locals made it to the 16:30 showing on Thursday and, from all fair indications, enjoyed and were engaged by the full RE-IMAGINED program.

I was really elated to see an interest in the topic and your films. The program was shown in the largest of three theaters (equipped with 450 seats (!) and state of the arts gear) and comfortably accommodated the young , primarily student-based audience.

The most rewarding aspect of all, were some of the reactions and questions that cropped up after the screening. After the roughly 75min show, students especially peppered me with questions such as: "Were/are some of the films on regular TV somewhere in the world?" (A reference to TSL and I agree that they certainly should be...) or "When/how/why is there this portrayed connection between the military and video games?" (The person asking had only ever viewed video games as "pure" entertainment) and "What was that guy writing about? Where was this done?" (again raising awareness of larger ideological roles that games can play by here referring to Dead-in-Iraq)

Everyone I spoke to after the show seemed to have "gotten" most of the central themes - despite a formidable language gap even with Korean translation. The audience enjoyed/grappled with the many themes presented in the totality of the show, for example, how some online games are acting a an extended social spaces and how games and their aesthetics are increasingly re-purposed and personalized (as with most of your movies). Or, for instance, how games hone and condition our individual and collective expectations of reality, how the interplay between in-game and Real Life seems increasingly dynamic and overlapping, how game fun sometime translates into entertaining meta-game media and how the ominous flip-side to this form of virtuality can harbor a disconnect to a darker 'reality' (as in the Ender Game references in World War Virtual).

These were just some of the intros into further conversations that were held on this and other festival topics here. I really came away with the impression that there's not been a lot of wide-spread critical thought about video games as a cultural preoccupation and that this foray worked as a welcome catalyst for those attending.

So with this blog (and earlier email out to the filmmakers) I'd very much would like to say thank you for sharing your work in a great program!

All the best and thanks for your great work!

Misha
Contact: mishakorea-atgmail-dot-com