Abstract:
The aim of the lecture is to discuss the possibility, modes and historical perspectives on animal play. Starting with Herbert Spencer who refers to “a German writer, whose name I forgot” (Friedrich Schiller), philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and ethologist (Verhaltensforscher in German) speculated about the question whether animals play, which animals play, why animals play, and how animals play.
Short Bionote:
Mathias Fuchs is a game artist, musician and media scholar. He pioneered in the artistic use of computer games and exhibited work at ISEA, SIGGRAPH, transmediale and the Greenwich Millennium Dome. In 2012 he became a professor at Leuphana University in Lüneburg. He is currently Senior Fellow at the IFK Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften I Kunstuniversität Linz in Wien.
Publications include:
Phantasmal Spaces. Bloomsbury Academic 2019
Diversity of Play. meson press 2015
Weltentzug und Weltzerfall, in: Philosophical Perspectives on Play. Routledge 2015
Passagen des Spiels. (with E. Strouhal) Springer 2010
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4606341649?pwd=MlZqb05zNHVpTGkwRXZsVm9makNKQT09
Digital Games Research Association, India 