dESIGN12+ #1: Inaugural lectures

by Prof. Daniel Heßler (Game Design)
Prof. Andreas Pawlitzki (Advertising Photography)
and Prof. Dr. Jennifer Tiede (Game Studies & Digital Knowledge)

moderated by Dean Prof. Prof. h.c. Dirk Gebhardt

We are very pleased to start the winter semester 2024/2025 with three exciting short lectures by our new lecturers.

Join us in welcoming Daniel Heßler, Andreas Pawlitzki and Dr. Jennifer Tiede
and find out what they will be researching and teaching in the BA/MA study programs at our Faculty of Design in the future.

Immersion, agency, performance, emergence or simply "BAM!" - There are many terms for gaming experiences, and each is associated with certain expectations. The preferences of different players are just as diverse, for example between socializers, completionists, gardeners, masterminds and daredevils. Those who play games entertain themselves in a unique way.

Those who develop games, whether analog or digital, constantly switch between simulating, designating and enabling.

Game designers balance: Image and model, text and sound, narrative and mechanics, activity and passivity, rigor and chance. They create experiences of gaining, possessing, losing and defending. Their everyday life is characterized by teamwork, testing and dreaming. They plan, try, discard and refine. They engage in entertainment and didactics, repetition and innovation, work and silliness. They design dynamics. And above all, they communicate.

Against this intellectual background, Daniel Heßler introduces himself as the newly appointed Professor of Game Design. He talks about his path from theater to the games industry, about agility and iteration as teaching principles and about games as a form of expression of rule, space, resource and interface.

In advertising photography, the focus of the work is on setting visual anchors that provide a foothold in a sea of information and are eye-catching. This is all based on the themes of perception, imagination and representation and results in creative impulse and technical excellence.

As a new tool, artificial intelligence in photography offers exciting new possibilities for the creation of innovative visual worlds and must therefore be integrated into the creative process.

Andreas Pawlitzki understands the term "teaching" as something that is future-oriented and takes social relevance and intercultural sensitivity into account. The aim is to support students, in accordance with their artistic orientation, in transforming their ideas into visual concepts that are both aesthetically pleasing and contemporary as well as highly functional.

(Digital) games are fascinating. In exciting games, we easily forget time and space. At the same time, playing always means learning: we automatically learn to control the game, follow the rules and carry out meaningful game actions in order to achieve game goals. Nevertheless, there is an apparent contradiction between the intrinsically motivated, fun-oriented activity of playing and the extensive requirements of formal and informal teaching and learning processes. Yet (digital) games offer significant potential for education and training, for example in terms of motivation to learn and the acquisition of knowledge and skills.

Complex questions arise in the connection between games and learning: how and what can we learn through games? Why does game-based learning work well in some cases and not in others? And how can we usefully support learning processes through games?

With this focus, Dr. Jennifer Tiede researches and teaches at the intersection of game studies, game-based learning and media education. Her other research interests include augmented and virtual reality, media pedagogical skills and international comparative educational research.

As part of the dESIGN12+ lecture series, Dr. Jennifer Tiede will introduce herself to the Faculty of Design as the new Professor of Game Studies and Digital Knowledge and give an overview of her previous, current and future research and teaching activities.