On March 15 “RocKonference” featured discussions of the cultural, aesthetic and historical hybridations between video games and heavy metal. The conference has been archived and is available on Youtube in its entirety (with English captions).
A significant portion of the conference presents the research done by Louis-Martin Guay and Dominic Arsenault featured in the Heavy Metal Generations ebook (http://mail.inter-disciplinary.net/online-store/ebooks/diversity-and-recognition/heavy-metal-generations) and the 4th Global Heavy Fundamentalisms Conference: Music, Metal and Politics (May 2012: Prague, Czech Republic).
The video description summarizes the main subjects:
A university conference and musical performance on heavy metal and video games by profs. Dominic Arsenault and Louis-Martin Guay. Full English captions and auto-translation in over 45 languages.
INDEX with links:
Intro: anecdotes, my general background and the basis of the idea.
(8:04) “Iron Man Castle” Medley (Iron Maiden/Mega Man/Castlevania)
(17:27) I. Early contacts: the arcade era. Pinballs from early metal bands; the video game arcade culture creeps into metal songs and videos; games and music share common themes and imagery
(30:00) II. The 8-bit era: technology and aesthetics. The NES hardware shapes in-game music by favoring the structures and energy of metal music; it gives music an unprecendented importance
(54:57) III. The 16-bit era: cultural exchanges. The Nintendo Kids generation grows up and finds in metal a continuation of early game music, in part by a shared focus on technical proficiency; they start game music bands; themes get more mature.
(1:05:20) “Doom Master” Medley (Doom/Metallica)
(1:11:06) IV. From convergence to hybridations. Beyond game soundtracks featuring metal music and metal bands featuring game sounds, games like Ed Hunter, Sacred 2 and Brütal Legend push the interplay between both cultures.
(1:32:57) V. Forging 8-Bit Metal music: a portrait of my research-creation. Overview of my experimentations in transfictionality, sound design and concept for 8-bit metal that’s not just metal covers, 8-bit covers, game-themed metal or chiptunes, but something between all that; demo of tools and work-in-progress.
(1:57:53) Multi-Memory Controller musical performance (original songs) : “In the Year 200X” (Mega Man 2) and “F-Zero Racing” (F-Zero)
Presented at Université de Montréal (Québec) in French on March 15th 2013.