Amongst the series :

“Overheating” (by Romain Laurent) captures what happens when our favorite gadgets bug;

“DéraPages” (By Khuong Nguyen and the Creative Sweatshop) imagines a video game paper world where everything goes wrong;

Photographer Isabelle Bonjean (Vogue, Wallpaper*…) hijacks some of nerd culture’s well known objects as if they had been conceived the wrong way, and Marc Da Cunha Lopes captures the first ever actual bug in highly technological places. Photographs below.

Through hundred of bugs, computer malfunctions, printing mishaps and visual series, AMUSEMENT pushes on with its will to bring more than information: a creative platform and innovative object that is able to question our digital environment.

On this occasion, we go through several moving territories: from the practice of e-sports with the release of Starcraft II to the inevitable online poker or the new interfaces that will change the future of sport, like the Battle Tag, a first person shooter grounded in the real world. Speaking about interfaces, Playstation Move’s creator granted us an interview about his truly revolutionary controller that was shot for AMUSEMENT in a highly animated photo series. A good starting point to focus on the ultimate interface: your body… and its unsuspected stakes !

From our personal relationships to the most complex representations of the world, from the smartphone permanently glued to our tight to the data collected on us from social networks and held on massive servers in Pennsylvania, the Internet has spread through the air like a cool, invisible gas-influencing each aspect of our lives. Discover this very special issue (now in English) !

If only one should remain, it would be him. Tron hugely prefigured our contemporary world, the rise of the gaming culture and our relationship to virtual realities. Without a doubt, the movie deserves its unique position in our filmography. The release of a new episode, supported by Daft Punk’s soundtrack, is the ideal opportunity to navigate between the myths: from the former movie to the new one, from a unique aesthetic to synthetic music. Thus, we met the visionary Philippe Ulrich, who told us more about the 40-year relationship between music and video games, but also with young electro artists who explained to us how they picked up new digital tools to develop their music. As always, this issue also offers several creative photo series… strangely speculative on this occasion.

Our 10th issue takes the shape of a vivid testimony of the success of our initial ambition: to broadcast the diversity of issues connected to digital entertainment and the creative vigour of the digital cultures.

From the new wave of indie video games to the vitality of digital arts, from emerging practices to the geek phenomena pervading an entire generation, AMUSEMENT have tried to express how technology was not any more an end in itself, but a way to create and imagine new worlds. Artists, musicians, writers, film-makers and users testify of their own enthusiasm through long-term interviews about these new and constantly emerging territories.

Thus, AMUSEMENT team took stock of the situation: militancy and web 2.0 actions, rising ideologies and alternative networks, computer programmers acting as artists or hacker aesthetics, Internet control and next-gen emancipation…We also met Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Secretary of State in charge of the digital economy, with whom had a geeky chat about major public debates such as the HADOPI and LOPPSI laws regarding Internet safety. But we were also interested in cyber activism, environmental issues and the uncontrolled broadcasting of our private lives. We then discussed the recent release of Metal Gear Solid : Peace Walker, or how one can promote an anti-military posture compromising any of the gameplay. In any case, we come to the same conclusion: Dream up a technology, but expect it eventually to be used against you!

This issue brushes a panorama of the latest experiments in storytelling in new media. In this new transmedia paradigm, digital platforms allow the actor-spectator to participate in a shifting narrative that reacts to his actions – on consoles, computers, mobile phones or in real life. In real life and in real cities, where the artists of Blast Theory base their celebrated geolocalized games, having spoken to us in an extensive interview contained in this issue.

This special feature also contains an exploration of Fan Fictions – these fan-made videos that open new ways to explore established universes – and discusses new ways to market and fund these interactive movies or series through web-community funding.

The second part of our feature explores the links and bonds between the ever-so-close media of video games and cinema. Adaptations from one to the other, structural and economic hybrids, or even imitations and mimetic behaviours (often with inconclusive results) proving that this already beaten theme still contains some subtleties to explore. The magazine’s closing pages are a proof of that, composed in a playful journal filled with interviews, analytic perspectives and theoretical papers that explore our subject even deeper.

As an actress and film director, Sara was the perfect casting choice to play a part in The Sims ™ 3’s “life simulation”. The actress took over the game and pushed it to its boundaries: ” It’s gonna get messy ” she asserts us during the interview. An experience vividly captured by award-winning photographer François Rousseau.

AMUSEMENT also gathered some more photographic talent: Jean-Yves Lemoigne with an exclusive photo series (“Forever Gamer”), Marc da Cunha Lopes going back to the roots of video game myths (” Made of Myth “), Mathieu Deluc mixing fashion and technonogy (” Camera Chameleon “) as well as Grégoire Alexandre with a photo series shot in a secret data center famous for its restricted access…

This special project involved the creation of five exclusive digital artworks – an arty video game, an interactive installation, and others – only available through the RFID tag.

This special issue allowed readers to access interactive online content : an exclusive sprinting game created by Messhof, an installation by Factoid and Le Tone shaped as a shoot’ em up game, a multi-user interactive device by Electronic Shadow, a photo series by Philippe Jarrigeon and a video shoot from the motion design studio Gkaster.

This release marks the arrival of the very first magazine of the “Internet of Things” era, acting as irrefutable proof that the internet and printed press are no longer separate entities but intertwined extensions of one another.

Thus, we met with Michel Gondry, the famous director known for his mad and low-tech special effects, Michael Moorock, one of the best living sci-fi writers, Kaz Hirai, head of Sony Computer International, David Winter, who assisted the inventor of the very first game console, and Peter Molyneux, the creative genius behind the cult saga Fable. Each of these guests bringing his own creative vision to the table, all sharing the same objective and achievements: the renewal of the digital entertainment landscape.

This plurality also ran through this issue’s main survey: the Japanese gaming scene. On this occasion, the AMUSEMENT decrypted how the country’s gaming culture is undoubtedly multiple, from trade issues to designers’ dreams of independence…

On this occasion, we asked five personalities from the field of culture to bring a character to life in Spore, a video game that invites you to populate an imaginary universe. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, first fashion designer to create a video game character, designer Ora-ïto, the singer Yelle, electro-band Midnight Juggernauts and artist Miltos Manetas shared their experience as virtual gods with us. The creators of Little Big Planet, inspired as no other video game studio by their creative environment, followed their example, meeting with us for an exclusive interview. And if anyone still needed proof that contemporary culture inspires video games, our closing survey looked at how video games take the best from the aesthetic of film and TV series.