Andreas Lange: The Preservation of Computer Games and the Role of Emulation

Most digital works of art, like computer games, are of a complex nature, and quite often require interaction with the recipients. This leads to the fact that the technical, but also curatorial conservation of computer and video games, as well as digital works of art, share the same prerequisites and objectives. A central tool for the conservation of complex digital artifacts are emulators, which have been developed, for the most part, by the retro-gamer community and which are now being taken up by institutions. Consequently, in 2009 the European research project KEEP (www.keep-project.eu) was established, the aim of which was to make available the programs developed in the games community, and consequently usable in larger social and cultural contexts. As Director of the Computer Games Museum and member of KEEP consortium, Andreas Lange will provide an account of the current status and future perspectives.

Andreas Lange studied Religion and Theater, and has been Director of the Computer Games Museum in Berlin since 1997. Prior to holding this position, he was consultant of the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (entertainments software self control) (USK). Lange is curator, among others, of the exhibition “pong.mythos” (from 2006) and “Computer Games. Evolution of a Medium (2011). He is author, among others, of the books “Spielmaschinen” (Berlin, 2002) and “pong.mythos” (Berlin, 2006). His essays have appeared, among others, in “Game on. The History and Culture of Videogames” (London 2002), “M_ARS. Art and War.” (Austria 2003) or “See? I’m real... Multidisziplinäre Zugänge zum Computerspiel am Beispiel von ‚Silent Hill’” (Germany 2005) or “Space Time Play” (Switzerland, 2007). He regularly holds lectures in academic and other contexts, is member of the Akademie des Deutschen Entwicklerpreises, as well as a jury member of the Deutschen Games Awards Lara. Lange is Project Director of the Computer Games Museum for the EU research project KEEP, speaker of AG Emulation of Deutsches Kompetenznetzwerk zur digitalen Langzeitarchivierung nestor, and holds the status of a Visiting Professor at the Jilin Animation Institute (China).