🎬 The Ludification of Vision

At the turn of the 20th century, a visual revolution changed not just what we see, but how we see. As cameras clicked faster and printing presses roared to life, images began to move at the speed of modernity, circulating widely, multiplying endlessly, and reshaping everyday perception. Stable viewpoints gave way to fractured perspectives, optical tricks, and sensory overload. Seeing became dynamic, playful, and full of possibility: a transformation that still defines our screen-saturated world.

To close The Ludification of Vision International Conference at the University of Amsterdam, this special short film program celebrates that playful turn. With a surprise selection of films, we invite you to experience cinema at its most mischievous: optical experiments, visual gags, and clever sleights of mise-en-scène that tease the eye and challenge what we think we are seeing. Inspired by comics, popular media, and a long history of toys that toy with our gaze, these films put viewers in on the game, rewarding curiosity, decoding, and the simple, exhilarating fun of looking.