“Concluding Statements” from participants of Alek Petuk’s Seminar on playing Dark Souls

DS was not just a key event for the gaming community (it launched a trend for “soulslike” games) but also an important cultural phenomenon of the 2010s.

The main aim of the seminar was to turn the “unserious” practice of a training game into the production of knowledge and social sciences research. During the meetings, participants also prepared “concluding statements,” a public event combining elements of an academic conference and a performance.

The author and leader of the seminars was artist Alek Petuk.

This event is part of the public program of the World Gone By computer class.

How to take part

Free with advance registration

Registration

Program

Alek Petuk, The results of the Dark Souls seminar

Rostislav Lovtsov, “Tabula rasa in Dark Souls: Character and Player as a Blank Sheet”

Ksenia Kudasova, “Video Games and Motherhood”

Eduard Iskhakov, “Points of Contact Between Dark Souls and the Everyday”

Maria Saakyan, “Stop Moment, You’re More or Less OK,” presentation of an interactive installation in the form of an indi-game

Katya Smolyanskaya, “I Simply Love to Play and Clean. The Right Order in Zoom-Movement”

Anatoly Kuzhilko, “Dark Souls as Black Square”

Irina Gulyakina, “Training. From Museum to Home,” screening of a video performance (camera, choreography: Tatyana Melnikova)

Yura Plokhov, “The Architecture of Dark Souls”

Nikita Stulikov, “The Methodology of Travel Notes in Video Games: Elden Ring”

Filipp Mokhov, “Push in the Mid”