Austria’s largest design week returns to its capital city — basing its headquarters in Althan Quartier and featuring Finland as this year’s “guest country”. Where last year the design week focused on virtual and augmented realities, the 2019 edition sheds a light on the world’s fastest-growing creative industry: video games. Firm in their belief that game design not only influences our free time, but also stimulates a wide variety of scientific and research fields — the Vienna Design Week Team has developed a programme that aims to create an international networking hub that paves the way for other design and business sectors as well as develop a new understanding of the physical work behind digital craftsmanship and the manifestations that they can have in other fields.
Mapping the local game development scene and its work in experimental yet accessible ways — guest curators Jogi Neufeld (Subotron) and Erwin Bauer (buero bauer) have developed a programme with interactive exhibitions and on-site projects. Some highlights include the ‘laboratory talks’, which provide detailed insights into different digital work processes and approaches, the three-day ‘game jam’, in which game developers and classic graphic designers are brought together in a dynamic setting that can open up new perspectives to the still-evolving medium and the ‘Guided Game Studio tours’ — where visitors can look over the shoulders of game developers from various disciplines while they’re working on their current games and gain concrete insights into everyday life and the physical environment of the industry.
“Watching designers at work, being able to interact with them and ask questions, learning to understand what exactly their work consists of – all this provides visitors to the lab of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK with a very special inside view into the design process of creative professionals. With this year’s game design focus, we aim to take up a playful issue that fascinates all generations and is of constantly growing relevance.” – Erwin Bauer, buero bauer
The projects that are part of the ‘Game Design’ focus include (but are not limited to) the puzzle game “Old Man’s Journey” by Broken Rules, the point-and-click adventure “The Lion’s Song” by Mi’pu’mi Games, the multiplayer racer “Light field” by Lost in the Garden, and the dystopian business simulation “Spinnortality” by James D. Patton.
Check out more of the programme here
Vienna Design Week will take place at Julius-Tandler-Platz 3 (in the Althan Quartier) from September 27th until October 6th, 2019.
