Events

With the climate crisis and its repercussions becoming more and more tangible, the media are increasingly participating in the production, circulation, and interrogation of environmental assumptions, using both explicit and implicit ways of framing the crisis. In this lecture, I will present an overview of my research on green media/ecogames/VR. I will first present our ‘Green Media Studies initiative,’ the four thematic sections of our book Ecogames: Playful Perspectives on the Climate Crisis, and our Horizon Europe project STRATEGIES: Sustainable TRAnsiTion for Europe’s Game IndustriES’ (2024-2028). Then I will demonstrate the possible impact of immersive technologies such as green VR on the basic dimensions of human experience—knowing, feeling, imagination and action—to foment ecological awareness and activism. As case studies I will present Tree (Milica Zec, 2017), SpaceBuzz (Media.Monks 2018), and Symbiosis (Polymorf 2020).

Related Links:
– Green Media Studies initiative
– Green Mediography
– Ecogames: Playful Perspectives on the Climate Crisis (AUP, 2024)
– STRATEGIES

Prof. Joost Raessens holds the chair of Media Theory at Utrecht University. His research focuses on the understanding of howgreen media—in the broadest sense, including digital media, theatre, film, television, audio, art and literature—contribute to ecological thought and facilitate different forms of civic engagement/ecological citizenship on a micro, meso and macro level. In general, his research interests include digital media and the ‘ludification of culture’; think of Games and VR for Change dealing with issues such as the climate crisis, forced migration, and space exploration (www.raessens.nl).

Cosponsored by the Department of Film and Media Studies and Wireframe media studio.