14.06.2024

14.06.24 - Workshop: "Mediality and Virtuality - De/Sacralisation in Video Games"

The notion of something holy or sacred is often embedded deep in a game’s story, language, and world. Whether it is sources of mythology or other highly revered religious and secular texts, video games can call upon such works and use elements from them to construct their worlds. Video games are therefore, like many other forms of media, firmly situated at the cross-section between sacralised texts and contemporary culture.
In this workshop, we will explore this phenomenon of moving aspects of sacralised texts into the virtual context of video games. Rather than assuming an inevitable desacralisation of the original texts, we argue that connecting the sacred in virtual worlds with real-life counterparts can also lead to sacralisation. Based on three talks, we aim to discuss the strategies used to sacralise material objects within the game’s virtual world by comparing building blocks of the sacred in video games with real-world examples.
If video games can help us understand the meaning of sacralised texts in the contemporary world, they might also prove useful in deepening our understanding of the processes of de/sacralisation in general.

For details, please see our flyer.

This workshop will be held in a hybrid format. Please send a message to koordinationspam prevention@for2828.uni-tuebingen.de if you wish to take part.