Stay tuned — a new PLAYCUBE event at Dartmouth!
Friday, May 7th: AREA+the Playcube present
“This is my World”
The Spring Student Art Exhibition
Gallery opening from 5-7PM, with the Cube serenading the Top of the Hop
Music + refreshments provided!
(in the belly of the the CUBE=digital photography and short films from the Dartmouth community!)
Dr. Doris Rusch visited Dartmouth today, and offered a compelling discussion of the purposeful use of games. She looked at the ways in which the human condition is expressed through other media such as language, literature, and film, and went on to argue for the value of thinking about games in their use of metaphor. Discussion several important recent design trend, Rusch skillfully moved between the theoretical and the practical, making lofty goals ideas concrete in designed form. This was followed by a game night at Tiltfactor, hosted with the help of the Jewel of India.
in the Tiltfactor laboratory
Rusch’s game, Akrasia, was featured, as was a performative achievement in DDR by our own E. McNeill. Finally, a seemingly neverending Settlers of Catan rounded out the evening, with an unsettling trend of rolling 9s and an overpopulation of sheep and monumental robot-building among teams.
Doris Rusch, MIT Gambit Game Lab
Wednesday April 28
3pm talk, “Purposeful Game Design”
Dr. Rusch discusses how she explores abstract concepts related to the human condition in her game design, primarily using metaphors to find links between sites of strong emotion and game play.
Tiltfactor Laboratory, 304 North Fairbanks, Dartmouth College
Thursday April 29th
Rusch visits 10am -12: Game Design: Values at Play Course
Product Owner: Akrasia
http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/akrasia.php
Product Owner, Executive Producer, Lead Designer: The Bridge
http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/thebridge.php
Doris C. Rusch holds a postdoctoral position with the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab in the Programme at Comparative Media Studies at MIT. Before that she worked at the Institute for Design and Assessment of Technology at Vienna University of Technology. In her habilitation project titled “Once More with Meaning”, Rusch investigates the medium specific characteristics of digital games and their potential to produce a wide range of emotionally satisfying and deeply meaningful experiences. Although her work is theory-driven, she aims at applicability of her research to actual game design with the goal of pushing the boundaries of games as media. Rusch has an eclectic background having completed studies in German Literature, Philosophy, English and Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna, where she also received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics. Her work in computer game studies is part of a larger interest in “narrative worlds” that expands over books, comics, and films.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Marcin Ramocki, Filmmaker
Tuesday May 11th 2010 at 5:30
Marcin Ramocki, Dartmouth alum from 1995, shows his film on videogame art, 8-Bit. Screening and talk with the filmmaker at 530 pm, Loews Theater, Dartmouth College.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Lucas Welch, Soliya
Thursday May 13th 2010 at 10am
Lucas Welch, Founder & Chief Innovation Officer of Soliya, a non-profit organization using new technologies to facilitate dialogue between students from diverse backgrounds across the globe. Welch visits 10am -12: Game Design: Values at Play Course to launch the dialogue building game design assignment.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Digital Humanities Symposium 2010
Friday May 14th, 2010 - All Day Event! Visitors include scholars in digital arts and humanities areas, project demonstrations. Free registration on the website includes breakfast, lunch, reception(s), demonstrations, talks.
A cosponsored Digital Humanities Symposium, Dartmouth College – Visitors Welcome!
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Dr. Helen Nissenbaum
Tuesday May 18th
Visit with Helen Nissenbaum, Professor, New York University, Media, Culture, and Communication & Computer Science; Senior Faculty Fellow, Information Law Institute
Dr. Helen Nissenbaum visits var_d and the co-sponsors of ISTS, Digital Humanities, Philosophy, and Tiltfactor.
Composer Pauline Oliveros joins us in our weekly variable_d salon via the
Dialogues. In Dialogues, students and members of the community come with ideas, themes, and questions and engage in a teleconferenced discussion of contemporary issues in the work. Past visitors have included Brenda Laurel, The Guerrilla Girls, and Katherine Hayles.
4pm, Jan 26th 2010
Tiltfactor lab
Additional links to Oliveros’ artifacts:
running electric charges through herself
Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer and humanitarian is an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she has explored sound — forging new ground for herself and others.
Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she has created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it and eludes many who try to write about it. “On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level.” John Rockwell Oliveros has been honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros’ commitment to interaction with the moment is unchanged. She can make the sound of a sweeping siren into another instrument of the ensemble.
Through Deep Listening Pieces and earlier Sonic Meditations Oliveros introduced the concept of incorporating all environmental sounds into musical performance. To make a pleasurable experience of this requires focused concentration, skilled musicianship and strong improvisational skills, which are the hallmarks of Oliveros’ form. In performance Oliveros uses an accordion which has been re-tuned in two different systems of her just intonation in addition to electronics to alter the sound of the accordion and to explore the individual characteristics of each room. (Tuning Chart)
Pauline Oliveros has built a loyal following through her concerts, recordings, publications and musical compositions that she has written for soloists and ensembles in music, dance, theater and interarts companies. She has also provided leadership within the music community from her early years as the first Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (formerly the Tape Music Center at Mills), director of the Center for Music Experiment during her 14 year tenure as professor of music at the University of California at San Diego to acting in an advisory capacity for organizations such as The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, and many private foundations. She now serves as Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Darius Milhaud Composer in Residence at Mills College. Oliveros has been vocal about representing the needs of individual artists, about the need for diversity and experimentation in the arts, and promoting cooperation and good will among people.
Tonight, Kathe Kollwitz of the Guerrilla Girls joined the variable_d salon to discuss activism in a digital age. Formed in 1985, the artists assumed the names of dead women artists and wore gorilla masks in public, concealing their identities and focusing on the issues rather than their tastes adn personalities. Between 1985 and today, over 100 women, working collectively and anonymously, have produced posters, billboards, public actions, books and other projects bring gender issues to the forefront of public debate and discussion.
Our variable_d discussion centered around questions of anonymity, data, inequity, and strategy. How the group arrived at decisions, consensus, and maintained confidentiality were all subjects for lively debate. Ms. Kollwitz noted that at times, one will simply not know if something is an effective approach until she tries it. All the planning in the world can enter into a campaign, but it is always a little bit surprising what connects with people, and what does not. She suggests, “Try it!”
The DIALOGUES are student-conducted interviews and conversations with leading artists, scientists, and scholars of our time with the support of the Digital Humanities initiative. The conversations are digitally mediated via SKYPE software and held in the context of the weekly digital salon at Tiltfactor.