Dr. Hartmut Koenitz is a scholar, designer, and artist. His research is concerned with the theory, practice, education and societal impact of interactive narratives and games. He is particularly concerned with the use of interactive narratives to better understand the complex world of the 21st century. His latest book “Understanding Interactive Digital Narratives. Immersive Expressions for a Complex Time” was published by Routledge in 2023 (http://understandingidn.com). Koenitz has published over 90 scholarly publications including the co-edited volume “Interactive Digital Narrative – History, Theory and Practice” (Routledge 2015).
He is a Professor in Media Technology at Södertörn University, a visiting researcher at the University of Amsterdam, and a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin.
Koenitz is also the president of ARDIN, the Association for Research in Digital Interactive Narratives (https://ardin.online) which organizes the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS) and is partnered with the ZIP Scene conference. Koenitz is also the founding Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Interactive Narrative (https://journal.ardin.online), a pioneering academic journal specific to the topic which integrates interactive experiences within articles, published in collaboration between ETC Press and ARDIN.
Koenitz is the chair of the EU COST Action 18230 INDCOR (Interactive Narrative Design for Complexity Representations – https://indcor.eu) and one of the editors of the upcoming Routledge Encyclopedia of Interactive Digital Narrative.
He is a member of several academic and professional societies, including DIGRA (Digital Games Research Association), ACM, European Council member of HEVGA (Higher Education Video Game Alliance), RealTime Society’s Interactive Storytelling Group, ELO (Electronic Literature Organization), the International Society for the Study of Narrative and the European Narratology Network.
Koenitz holds a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Digital Media on the theory and practice of Interactive Digital Narrative.
He is the creator of the ASAPS authoring tool, which has been used to create more than 150 works. Previously, Koenitz was the CTO of the Berlin-based startup Designnet, worked as a tech journalist writing more than 150 articles, consulted for clients like Stanford in Berlin and co-founded a tech company.
Koenitz is also a visual artist, and his works have been shown in Atlanta, Paris, Istanbul, Seoul, Copenhagen and Porto. His latest artwork, The Multiple Lives of Walter B. is a physical installation that explores virtual biographies of Walter Benjamin.