Mental Health | Atmospheres | Video Games

Gaming has never been disconnected from reality. When we engage with ever more lavish virtual worlds, something happens to us. The game imposes itself on us and influences how we feel about it, the world, and ourselves. How do games accomplish this and to what end? The contributors explore the video game as an atmospheric medium of hitherto unimagined potential. Is the medium too powerful, too influential? A danger to our mental health or an ally through even the darkest of times? This volume compiles papers from the Young Academics Workshop at the Clash of Realities conferences of 2019 and 2020 to provide answers to these questions.

Jimena Aguilar Rodríguez is the head of digital narratives at ifs internationale filmschule köln, and is the co-founder and creative director of Alharaca, a Salvadorean feminist news media organization. Federico Alvarez Igarzábal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany, working in the EU-funded project VIRTUALTIMES. In 2018 he completed his PhD at Universität zu Köln and TH Köln. Michael S. Debus is a postdoctoral researcher at the IT University of Copenhagen, entrepreneur, and industry expert. He obtained his PhD on game ontologies in 2019. Curtis L. Maughan holds a PhD in German Studies from Vanderbilt University, where he is currently a postdoctoral scholar. SuJin Song is a teaching and research assistant at the Cologne Game Lab of TH Köln, teaching in the field of media and game studies. She is also a film producer and director based in Germany. Miruna Vozaru is a PhD fellow at the IT University of Copenhagen, working on the ERC funded project Making Sense of Games. Felix Zimmermann received a scholarship from the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne for his doctoral project on atmospheric experiences of the past in digital games. He is part of the research group 'Geschichtswissenschaft und Digitale Spiele' (Historical Science and Digital Games).