Tommy Støckel & Michael Straeubig
Human beings are social animals. Within any social system there are rules. Humans tend to follow rules blindly. Gaming is all about rules-based systems and social interaction, following a shared logic as a form of playful experimentation. The art world is also a game, with different roles prescribed within it, and seemingly strict rules that need to be adhered to, or subverted. Is there a shared space of playful experimentation that we can distinguish that encompasses both disciplines?
The Atlantic Dialogues are a series of public talks and interdisciplinary discussions, organized jointly by the Atlantic Project and Plymouth University Fine Art. All talks are free and open to students and the general public, held at 4pm in the Jill Craigie Lecture Theatre, Roland Levinsky Building, University of Plymouth [unless otherwise stated].
Tommy Støckel (b. 1972 Copenhagen, lives and works in Berlin) is an artist whose projects centre around investigations into the possibilities within the medium of sculpture, and at the same time into histories and possible futures. The works tend to start with three-dimensional objects, but these objects are often supplemented with other media that help to expand the ideas behind the sculptures. These media have so far included photographs, billboard posters, books, architecture models, typefaces and a digital keyboard for mobile devices, and they have helped to show sculptures in other stages of completion, in alternative arrangements or as animations explaining sculptures physical transformations. Aesthetically, the sculptures relate to minimal, geometric art as well as to low-polygon computer graphics, but at the same time they try to add a human aspect by using recognizable materials and leave signs of man-made production. It is important to be able to identify with the processes behind the work.
Michael Straeubig is a game designer and creative coder, exploring games and playful experiences in various media with a focus on mixed reality and experimental play. His published games include “Secret City - Missing Max”, “(Speed) Gardening Guerrilla”, “Tidy City”, “Eine gegen Eine”, and a number of event games and theatrical / experimental interactions. Michael has contributed to numerous workshops, game jams and hackathons (including the German location of the Global Game Jam in 2009), and taught game design, creative coding and a course on “Gödel, Escher, Bach” at Leuphana University, Luneberg. He is a Marie Curie Fellow at Plymouth University, researching playful systems. Since August 2017 Michael has also been the lecturer for Game Arts and Design at Plymouth University.
