April 11, 2008
Jason Rohrer: games as art - 05/02
WHEN: 05/02/2008 session of the NYU Gaming Seminar. Starts at 3:30 pm.
WHERE: Skirball Center for New Media, 9th floor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, 721 Broadway.
CONTACT: Jean-Marc Gauthier, jean-marc.gauthier@nyu.edu
Jason Rohrer
BIO: Jason Rohrer is an independent game artist, programmer, and critic.
With game designs that explore complex and subtle aspects of the human condition, his work has bolstered the acceptance of games as a serious art form. Rohrer's games have been shown at festivals and art exhibitions in Park City, Toronto, Montreal, and Lleida, Spain. His 2007 release, Passage, received widespread critical and industry acclaim, with God of War creator David Jaffe calling Passage "one of the most emotional video games I've ever played." Parallel with his design efforts, Rohrer's review and interview site Arthouse Games has served as the lone hub of artgame criticism since 2006. Rohrer lives with his spouse and two children in the rural town of Potsdam, New York, where they pursue a simple, frugal lifestyle.
Some URLs for linking:
http://hcsoftware.sf.net/passage
http://hcsoftware.sf.net/gravitation
http://arthousegames.n3.net
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120034796455789469.html
ABSTRACT:In his lecture "The Game Design of Art," Jason Rohrer will present his observations from the front lines of the "games as art" debate. The fundamental question for Rohrer is not "Can games be art?", but instead, "How can we make art with our games?" Through comparison with film and critical analysis of several example artgames, the talk will explore one possible creative route: using game mechanics as metaphor.
Posted by jean-marc at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2008
James Tunick, Studio IMC, games for public spaces - 04/04
WHEN: Program of the 04/04/2008 session of the NYU Gaming Seminar. Starts at 1:00 pm.
WHERE: Skirball Center for New Media, 9th floor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, 721 Broadway. Seminar starts at 1:00 pm.
CONTACT: Jean-Marc Gauthier, jean-marc.gauthier@nyu.edu
James Tunick
BIO: James Tunick received his BA from Yale University and received his Masters in New Media from NYU Tisch Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). He is President/Co-Founder of StudioIMC (www.StudioIMC.com), a new media agency based in New York City. Studio IMC clients have included the Museum of Modern Art PS1, Heineken, Hennessy, Clear Channel, US Army, Diesel, NBC/Universal, National Amusements, the NJ Nets, the NRDC, and many others.
Tunick is also Executive Producer of the IMCexpo (www.IMCexpo.net), a show about innovations in art and technology held at the Chelsea Art Museum. Tunick also produced a 3-month Studio IMC show called “Beyond TV” at the Museum of TV & Radio in New York City (www.mtr.org/events/beyondtv)
Tunick’s work has been featured in the Time Warner Center, Times Square, Philadelphia, LA, Dallas, Boston, and Chicago, as well as in the LA Times, on NY1 News, The Discovery Channel, and Sony News Network. Tunick’s work has also been featured in Rollingstone Magazine, in the Museum of Modern Art, in the book, Virtual Sets and Pre-Visualization for Games, Movies and the Web, by Jean-Marc Gauthier, and in an upcoming book about media to be published in China.
He also has a patent pending with more software in the pipeline and he has plans to open a Studio IMC research lab and gallery in New York City with his business partners, Tony Rizzaro and Eric Alini.
Posted by jean-marc at 07:57 AM | Comments (0)
Oren Ross - Gameloft - 04/04
WHEN: Program of the 04/04/2008 session of the NYU Gaming Seminar. Starts at 1:00 pm.
WHERE: Skirball Center for New Media, 9th floor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, 721 Broadway.
CONTACT: Jean-Marc Gauthier, jean-marc.gauthier@nyu.edu
BIO: As a student at Gallatin, Oren Ross paved a unique path through the many schools, forging a study in game design, when many academic institutions just began looking at it as a course worthy of higher education. After graduating, he went straight to Tisch’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, continuing his trailblazing ways through the closest possible academic route. While a student at ITP, he and a few fellow students received the Digital Incubator Grant from mtvU / Cisco Systems, to create snagu, a mobile phone scavenger hunt.
Through his career in gaming he has already worked with the Entertainment Software Rating Board, 2K Games, and MTV Networks. Currently he conducts playtest sessions at Gameloft, advising producers on small fixes that will have big effects, to ensure that the games are able to reach the highest level of fun possible. He also volunteers with NYU, as a Board Member of the Alumni Association, and the International Game Developers Association, producing their momentous Demo Nights, a New York game industry favorite.
Posted by jean-marc at 05:24 AM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2008
Susan Gold, chair of IGDA Education - 03/28
WHEN: Program of the 03/28/2008 session of the NYU Gaming Seminar. Starts at 1:00 pm.
WHERE: Skirball Center for New Media, 9th floor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, 721 Broadway.
CONTACT: Jean-Marc Gauthier, jean-marc.gauthier@nyu.edu
Susan Gold
BIO: Susan is chair of the International Game Developers Association Education Special Interest Group and serves as an academic curriculum consultant in video games and computer graphics. Susan's work with the Ed SIG has created many new tools for instructors in game education. Her current focus is in organizing a knowledge base, developing student outcomes in games, resources for educators teaching in games as well as creating curricular models for the varying academic programs.
A key focus for Susan is in developing game industry relationships to help build academic relations and recommendations for educators. Susan is an artist, teacher, and activist with a specialization in digital art, new media and videogames. She speaks around the world on the IGDA curriculum framework, how to get hired in the industry and is often asked to review student portfolios. Susan's key role is to help educators develop collaborative learning strategies in the classroom to make for successful graduates. Susan's artwork and writing have been featured in numerous galleries and museums.
As an educator, Susan has helped shape a niche program in entertainment technology. Honored as the 2008 IGDA MVP, Susan continues to seek out new ways of to improve the education of students and help educators throughout the world. Susan sits on the ACM SIGGRAPH Education Committee and the IEEE WG16.3 Committee on Theoretical Foundation of Entertainment Computing in addition to numerous university and industry advisory boards.
Posted by jean-marc at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2008
Independent game designers
Program of the 02/08/2008 session of the NYU Gaming Seminar. Starts at 1:00 pm.
WHO: The speakers are DAVE GILBERT, creator of Wadjet Eye Games and CHARLES JOSEPH PRATT, creator of Situated Games, winner of Digital Incubator Grant from MTVu and Cisco Systems.
WHERE: Skirball Center for New Media, 9th floor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, 721 Broadway.
CONTACT: Jean-Marc Gauthier, jean-marc.gauthier@nyu.edu
DAVE GILBERT has been interested in adventure games ever since 1986, when his mother made the mistake of buying him a copy of Wishbringer. In 2001 he took his first dip into game creation in when he discovered the Reality on the Norm Project and wrote his first short game. Since then, he has authored over six successful freeware games, including 2004's award-winning Two of a Kind. In 2006, he turned his hobby into a fulltime career and founded Wadjet Eye Games.
CHARLES JOSEPH PRATT is a freelance game designer working in New York City. His most recent work was as Level Designer for Adult Swim’s Viva Caligula. He is also the co-founder and Game Designer of Situated Games, whose social networking game Casablanca won the most recent Digital Incubator Grant from MTVu and Cisco Systems.
Posted by jean-marc at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2008
Ken Levine, Stories matter...
Program of the 02/01/2008 session of the NYU Gaming Seminar. Starts at 1:00 pm.
WHO: The speakers are Ken Levine, creator of the game Bioshock and N'Gai Croal, journalist at Newsweek.
WHERE: Skirball Center for New Media, 9th floor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, 721 Broadway.
CONTACT: Jean-Marc Gauthier, jean-marc.gauthier@nyu.edu
Ken Levine, creator of Bioschok, is a founding member of, and creative
director at 2K Boston, formerly known as Irrational Games and now part of Take Two. BioShock one of the top game of 2007, is representative of the new generation of games with a focus on narratives. AP hailed the game "a first-person
shooter turned morality play, a thinking person's action game, a piece of electronic fiction with a soul. Review.
N'Gai Croal, general editor at Newsweek and technology writer, launched a videogame blog for Newsweek called "Level Up" that quickly became an industry must-read.
Posted by jean-marc at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)