چهارمین کنفرانس «بازی‌های رایانه‌اي؛ فرصت‌ها و چالش‌ها»- ۲ اسفند ۱۳۹۷

دکتر استفان پیازسکی (Stefan Piasecki) از کشور آلمان، سخنران کلیدی چهارمین کنفرانس بازی‌هاي رايانه‌اي در دانشگاه کاشان بود. وی استاد جامعه‌شناسی و علوم سیاسی در دانشگاه North Rhine-Westphalia  کشور آلمان است که بزرگترین دانشگاه مدیریت عمومی در اروپا به شمار مي‌رود. وي همچنين مدرس دانشگاه‌هايDuisburg-Essen  و تهران است. زمینه‌های اصلی پژوهش‌های دکتر پيازسکي شامل رسانه‌هاي تعاملي، سياست و مذهب است. دکتر پيازسکي به مدت يك دهه به‌عنوان تهيه‌كننده در صنعت بازي‌سازي مشغول به کار بوده است. وی همچنین کتابی پیرامون رابطه بازي‌هاي ويديويي و مذهب منتشر کرده است

چکیده سخنرانی ایشان به شرح زیر است:

Clash of Realities? Games, Religion and Virtual Realities

Game worlds are full of religion. Games entertain, visualize and bind individuals for months or even years to technical frameworks and its content.Games cross national and cultural borders and let people from various backgrounds make common experiences, thus opening many possibilities also for theology and religious education. Games freely use motifs and utopian visions from many different sources. Is religion in games simply a story-element, a narrative set of features or can it possibly support transcultural and interreligious experiences - or even lead to misunderstandings?

Virtual Reality, as a new experience of an expanded individual reality offers new levels of immersion and interactivity. Boundaries are shifting between here and there, now and then. Virtual Worlds make accessible what formerly remained part of one's imagination - the other world.

The advantage of games and especially VR-technologies is that now previously imagined content can be visualized. Experiencing utopian visions and also ancient sanctuaries or rites just as believers did long ago is an exclusive possibility in VR - completely free of possible danger. VR could support interreligious understanding, but also causes follow-up questions:

Is it tolerable for someone to join mutually exclusive practises under a fake (religious) identity? Can or may one enter a virtual holy place dressed or behaving indecently? Can virtual sacred places be violated? What is the meaning of a virtual shrine or rite - is it the same as in reality? Does gamified religion remain bound to firm beliefs as well as to loyalty and fellowship or will it transform?

Virtual Reality is widely used in architecture, medicine, engineering, education and games. This presentation attempts to discuss the current state of technology and its implications for social and religious sciences and to throw up questions for future discussions.

دکتر سوفی روشه​​​​​​​ (Sophie Roche) از دانشگاه Heidelberg کشور آلمان، سخنران کلیدی چهارمین کنفرانس بازی‌هاي رايانه‌اي در دانشگاه کاشان بود. وي استاد مردم‌شناسي اسلامي در دانشگاه Goethe  فرانکفورت و از سال ۲۰۱۳ تا ۲۰۱۷ مدیر یک گروه پژوهشی در دانشگاه Heidelberg  بوده است. دکتر روشه در موسسه Max Planck  در رشته مردم‌شناسی اسلامی کار کرده و دکتری خود را در سال ۲۰۱۰ از دانشگاه Martin-Luther  دریافت کرده است. وی در چهارمین کنفرانس بین‌المللی بازي‌هاي رايانه‌اي به همراه پروفسور پيازسکي ديگر سخنران کليدي کنفرانس و نيز خانم دكتر سحر فائقي (دانشگاه آزاد اصفهان)، خانم دكتر زهرا اميرزاده پژوهشگر اصالتاً پاكستاني ساكن آلمان، پنلي را ارائه نمودند كه چكيده‌ي آن در ادامه مي‌آيد:

چکیده سخنرانی ایشان به شرح زیر است:

Experiencing Climate Change: Raising awareness for climate changethrough computer games

Climate change and related disasters pose serious risks to societies worldwide. Environmental change has become a major driver of migration with the number of climate refugees exceeding the number of refugees displaced by war or persecution. However, much of the discussion about climate change is kept abstract and detached from our daily behavior. Threatening scenarios and abstract discussions are responsible for a certain disinterest in the topic and resulting apathy among youth and other social groups. At the same time, movies of the Hollywood genre “nature fights back” propagate horror scenarios, which deem any meaningful preparation unnecessary. Finally, the range of possible actions at an everyday level is so broad that many young people feel discouraged to start changing their attitude as well as overwhelmed in the face of the tremendous challenges.

Against this background, the team suggests tackling climate change and environmental disasters from a different angle by adopting an action­oriented approach, which grants the ability to act on a micro­level and receive direct feedback. This change of perception provides a basis for using climate change and disasters as central drivers for social and individual transformation. This can be achieved through the explorative ways of computer gaming. Through this medium, players are capable of directly engaging with and actively interfering in the course of events. Through feedback loops, players will be motivated to follow a constructive path in shaping a sustainable (virtual) future. They will experience the interference or individual actions to have a positive outcome or, if destructive, a negative short­lived outcome. Moreover, the use of shorter feedback loops as compared to realistic time­scales exploits the potential of conveying crucial and often abstract relations between cause and effect, as well as interdependencies between human and natural systems. Using existing scenarios but through time­lapse the team and developers will find ways .to turn disasters into a field of experience and offer possibilities to build up alternative lives.​​​​​​​