On August 18th and 19th, the Liège Game Lab will be organizing the two days symposium « Archiving Videogames: Creation, Localisation & Intersectionality », with the aim of examining the conservation of video games in an academic context.
We plan to explore different axes during these two days.
- We will examine the ways in which different institutions manage to conserve video games, including BnF (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), SVGA (Swiss Video Games Archivist), KBR (Royal Library of Belgium), ULiège, and others. What does it mean to set up a video game research center in a university or library? What are the different methodologies?
- In a subsequent session, we will address some questions about how we should look at the process of archiving and showcasing video games. This process raises important issues, particularly in terms of resources and choice of work, which can be influenced by gender bias. What knowledge does a gender study approach produce about these objects? How can we take a committed look at a collection that, at first glance, is not?
- Lastly, we’d also like to highlight some thoughts on how to approach a collection housed in a different place from its origin. Most video game archiving initiatives focus on local production. For example, Pixelvetica, a SVGA initiative, is committed to preserving Swiss video games. At the Liège Game Lab, we have the project to write a history of Belgian video games. However, our lab has received a loan of 4832 japanese video games from Ritsumeikan University. This context raises questions about the potential link between production and organization of an archive and the culture of a country. In our case, we are also questioning the specificity of the so-called “Japanese video game”, and the criteria on which we should base our efforts to preserve this object. These reflections invite us to rethink the notion of territory in the conservation and study of video games. What does it mean to preserve video games relating to a geographical area (e.g. Japan)? What are the particularities if this collection is not preserved in the geographical area concerned?
Program
Day 1 : August 18th – Val Benoit (on site)
AM
8:30 Greeting
9:00 Introduction
Session 1 – Preserving video games within an institution
9:10 – 9:50 David Benoist « Legal deposit and video game preservation at the Bibliothèque nationale de France »
9:55 – 10:35 Aurore Lüscher « Research, preservation and archiving in Switzerland: an overview of practices through the case of the GameLab Lausanne collection, the Pixelvetica report and the CoronaQuest Forever Documented project (SVGA) »
10:40 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 11h40 Bernard Perron « Between Adventure and Strategy: Challenges and Issues of a University Video Game Teaching and Research Lab »
11:45 – 12h25 Fanny Rebillard « From « Video Game Music » to « Video Game & Music »: Cultural Negotiation in Museum Curation »
12:25 – 13:25 Lunch break
PM
13:30 – 14:10 Benoit Crucifix « Popular Heritage Lost and Found. Non-Canonical Media Collections at the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) »
Session 2 – Situated look on the perpetuation of the video game
14:15 – 14:55 Anna-Maria Trefois « On creating a feminist video game archive »
14:55 – 15:15 Coffee break
15:20 – 16:00 Charlotte Courtois « “Queer [games] can’t have a straight history »: how pornographic games on micro-computer widen our view of queerness in games »
16:05 – 16:45 Andréa Melin « Completing a partial history of video games: the birth of Game Production Studies to highlight its design methods »
16:50 – 17:00 Conclusion of the day
Day 2 : August 19th – Val Benoit (on site)
AM
8:30 Greeting
9:00 Introduction of the day
Session 3 – Preserving a local video game abroad
9:10 – 9:50 Martin Roth « What is Japanese about ‘Japanese Videogames’? A data-based perspective »
9:55 – 10:35 Hiroshi Yoshida
10:40 – 11:00 Coffee break
Session 4 – Valorising at ULiège
11:05 – 11:45 Adrien Mathy « Video games in university libraries: synergies and collaboration at ULiège »
11:50 – 12:00 Conclusion
12:30 Lunch
Infos
Global event with online access through Zoom.
If you wish to take part, please inform us via email at: amtrefois@uliege.be
With the support of the Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS) ; the RISE (Research, Innovation, Support and Enterprise) departement of the University of Liège ; the « Traverses » (Philosophy and Letters) research unit ; the University Research and Valorisation Counsil (CURV) ; and the Liège Game Lab.
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