(yes Jeff Watson – I am a copy cat…)

Filmmaker John Grierson famously described documentary cinema as “the creative treatment of actuality.” Documentary films can illuminate unseen processes, broaden our awarenesses of the past and present, and challenge us to make a better future. How might games achieve similar ends? What can interactive media do in the realms of non-fiction, documentary, and activism that other kinds of media cannot? How can we use games and interaction design not only to document “actuality,” but also to intervene on it, and to shape the world to come?

This course explores the past, present, and future of documentary and activist interactive media and games. Students will approach the topic from a variety of perspectives, drawing on art practice, cultural studies, game studies, cinema studies, urbanism, and more. Informed by these historical and theoretical contexts, students will workshop documentary and activist games of their own.

Coding experience welcome but not required. Limited enrollment. Course open to graduate students and upper level undergraduates.

Speakers: Mark Stephen Meadows & Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Ph.D.
Time: Wednesday, November 19, 4-6pm
Location: USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media Building(SCI), Room 206
TITLE: The Art of Conversational Characters: NLP, AI, IF, & NPCs!

This talk provides an overview of autonomous avatars and virtual assistants.  The talk is divided into two portions: Today and Tomorrow.
Today: This is a state-of-the-art survey. We review a number of systems and draw comparisons of interaction, personality, function, backstory, and their place in this exploding market.  We compare Cortana, Ellie, Jarvis, Watson and Siri and draw some conclusions about the importance of context. Of course we show Geppetto Avatars’ own Sophie as well.  We will discuss the technologies used and in particular the fragility of voice recognition.  We expand this into an investigation of the role that emotion plays in our interactions, how emotion and identity is detected, and what this means to search and advertising companies like Google or Facebook.
    Tomorrow: These systems will change the landscape of the Internet.  First we look at the impact avatars will have on search and social media. We then look at what this means for identity, privacy, knowledge, and our right to own our own personalities.  A social media structure that uses autonomous avatars and blockchain technologies to address these concerns is reviewed and we show example scaffolding for current development work that opens up broad new vistas for not just entertainment and games, but how we can each make money by contributing our own information to a city of avatars that will serve us in the coming years.

Mark Stephen Meadows is an American author, entrepreneur, and artist. He is the co-founder of Geppetto Avatars, Inc. and creator of several conversational character technologies.
He is the inventor of several US patents relating to artificial intelligence and avatars, and he lectures internationally on this work. In addition to developing software, Meadows is known for his hitchhiking adventures, specifically for visiting Baghdad in 2003, and his interviews with terrorists in Sri Lanka. He holds a USCG captain’s license.

Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Ph.D. is Director, Medical Virtual Reality at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies and Research Professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry and School of Gerontology, University of Southern California.
He conducts research on the design, development and evaluation of Virtual Reality systems in the treatment of PTSD, autism, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and other serious disorders. He studies how interactive and immersive VR simulations can be applied to healthcare needs, beyond what’s possible with traditional tools and methods. Rizzo also tracks VR applications in clinical assessment, treatment and rehabilitation across psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in both healthy and clinical populations. He is a clinical psychologist and the director of Medical Virtual Reality Research at the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California; and research professor in the USC Department of Psychiatry and at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. In his spare time he plays rugby, listens to music, rides his motorcycle and thinks about new ways that VR can drag the field of psychology, kickin’ and screamin’, into the 21st century. To view videos on his work, please visit: Youtube.com.

Students! If you missed out on the legendary comic book writer and pop-culture innovator Stan Lee…no worries! because USC was there at the event to cover the latest innovations of comic book characters, interactive media, and above all the cosplay! Why do we go to Comic-Cons? to geek out. To buy Stuff, see stuff, enjoy all the things that “nerds” were scrutinized in the early generations, now turned pop-culture. We like geek-dom all in one place. With San Diego Comicon, the mother load of all conventions, being virtually impossible to get into, (even for professionals now) Stan Lee’s Comikaze is a wonderful event packed with all the great things we love. Cosplayers in awesome costumes, vendors selling cool stuff, celebrities in the industry, many independent creators promoting their work….and more.

USC was there to look into the innovations as media and to look into the new techniques utilized to draw, color, paint, and develop the modern day Comic Book. Also known as a graphic novel, comic books have been a generational success drawing additional readers to the many publishers like DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, and even independents! What was great about Stan Lee’s Comikaze is the innovation promoted by the writers and publishers. You could attend certain panels in isolated meeting rooms to learn how to imagine, write, and develop storybooks…the foundation(s) of becoming a writer. Other panels included penciling, sketching, inkers, and editing.

A wonderful experience for the few USC students who attended and hope to draw more from the interactive community to these smaller expos!

Speaker: Alyssa Padia Walles
Time: Wednesday, November 12, 4-6pm
Location: USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media Building(SCI), Room 206

Alyssa’s career in the video game industry includes re-launching the Atari brand, developing international distribution markets for Sony PlayStation and negotiating national sports league agreements for Backyard Sports. At Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, she was a member of the senior management team that launched PlayStation across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. As Senior Vice President at Infogrames/Atari, Alyssa played a significant role in the integration of both GT Interactive and Hasbro Interactive.

In addition to her work with multi-national corporations, Alyssa spent a number of years focused on her own start-up: Big Screen Gaming. Big Screen Gaming was a proprietary gaming platform that combined console-style gaming with the premium experience of movie theater sound and visual quality.
As a consultant on business strategy, development, sales and marketing (through her company Amplitude Consulting, Inc.), Alyssa has influenced brands such as Fisher-Price, Nimbus Games, Leapfrog and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. She is currently COO of Information Humanities, Inc. a digital media company the digital media company that publishes Glo Bible.

A USC Cinema graduate, Alyssa is a founding member of Long Beach TEC (a digital media incubator), mentor on behalf of the USC Marshall School of Business, and serves on the Board of Directors of Atari, S.A.

Speaker: Nauman Javed, Gaikai
Time: Wednesday, November 5, 4-6pm
Location: USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media Building(SCI), Room 206

Nauman Javed is a computer engineer presently working at Gaikai, a Sony Computer Entertainment company, on integrating its revolutionary video game streaming service to all kinds of consumer electronics devices, from smart TVs and cable/satellite set-top boxes to tablets and smart phones. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering earlier this year from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has worked in the research and development of various large-scale distributed computer systems, ranging from defense command and control systems to networked radar systems and other cyber-physical systems. Among some of his avocational forays was his development of a language understanding software system to be used on a robot. In his spare time, he enjoys consuming good literature in cognitive science and neuroscience.

Speaker: Judith Donath,
Time: Wednesday, October 29, 4-6pm
Location: USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media Building(SCI), Room 108
Title: The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online

Judith Donath is the author of The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online. In her work, Donath synthesizes knowledge from fields such as urban design, evolutionary biology and cognitive science to build innovative interfaces for online communities and virtual identities. The former director of the Sociable Media Group at MIT Media Lab, she created several of the earliest social applications for the web and her work with the Sociable Media Group has been shown in museums and galleries worldwide. She is known internationally for her writing on identity, interface design, and social communication.

Speaker: Mike Bonifer, GameChangers
Time: Wednesday, October 22, 4-6pm
Location: USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media Building(SCI), Room 206
Title: Quantum Storytelling or Big Story: The Science of How Stories Live in Networks

Mike Bonifer is the co-founder and CEO of GameChangers, which uses its proprietary
improvisation-based system to help its clients improve their ability to communicate and
collaborate.
After a rewarding career in the entertainment business, during which he pioneered the
uses of new technologies, such as digital video and computer graphics, in storytelling,
Bonifer wrote GameChangers – Improvisation for Business in the Networked World. The
book became the foundational text for GameChangers, which he co-founded in 2007 with
Dr. Virginia Kuhn of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.
Today, GameChangers consists of a worldwide network of coaches and strategists whose
clients range from large global companies such as GE, Gap, Inc., Skype and United
Airlines, to start-ups and not-for-profits. GameChangers provides its clients with the tools
and techniques to be more agile organizationally and more attuned to their customers and
the marketplace.
Bonifer sees the co-creation made possible with GameChangers’ proprietary system as a
critical business skill for companies operating in a fast-evolving global marketplace. He
believes the stories we build together make us more effective in business, and in all areas
of life.

Speaker: Todd Richmond, USC Institute For Creative Technologies
Time: Wednesday, October 15, 4-6pm
Location: USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media Building(SCI), Room 206

Todd Richmond is the director of advanced prototype development and transition at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies. He entered college as a music major – an interest he continues to pursue as a performing bassist and vocalist in a variety of ensembles – but graduated with a B.A. in chemistry. Richmond went on to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech. Following a postdoc at UCSF in protein engineering, he accepted a faculty position at The Claremont Colleges where his teaching experience encompassed lecture and laboratory courses in introductory, organic and biological chemistry. In addition he created new curriculum in medicinal chemistry and revamped the biochemistry lecture course. Early in his faculty career Richmond incorporated multimedia and web technologies into his teaching and research. That work led him to evolve from his specific focus on chemistry to instead pursue a broader understanding of the intersections of technology and content. He moved to the USC Annenberg Center in 2000 as managing director, researching trends in new media while fostering emerging digital technologies for collaboration and learning. At ICT Richmond works in a variety of areas including: counter-IED training systems involving video narrative, immersive environments and geo-specific multiplayer gaming scenarios; interactive education including serious games and simulations; visualization, messaging and media as agents of change; viral media and building learning communities. He also is a writer, photographer and filmmaker, having produced/directed a series of “mini documentary” projects as well as numerous new media pieces. On the music tip, he has studied with Grammy-winning bassist Victor Wooten and is currently a mentee of Kai Eckhardt.

Speaker: Erin Reilly, Blackstone LaunchPad @USC
Time: Wednesday, October 8, 4-6pm
Location: USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media Building(SCI), Room 206

Erin Reilly is Creative Director & Research Fellow for Annenberg Innovation Lab at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and Executive Director of Blackstone LaunchPad @USC.  In her role, she oversees all aspects of lab programming, product design and mentoring students in developing applications and business ideas using digital media and how it impacts society. Her research focuses on new media literacies, transmedia play and learning, social entrepreneurialism, audience engagement and the future of media and entertainment. 
 
Having received multiple awards, such as Cable in a Classroom’s Leaders in Learning, Erin is a recognized expert in the development of processes and resources for educators and students and conducts field research to collect data and help shape the field of digital media and learning.  Erin has successfully designed and implemented the Annenberg Innovation Lab’s CRUNCH Student Design Challenge.  This incubator supports student teams to learn new skills, meet industry leaders, and learn about what it takes to design new products, and in the past four years, two of the winning teams have gone on to accelerators and launch their startups. Erin has also developed the lab’s Think & Do ideation session to engage the wider community in re-envisioning the media and entertainment industry.  This ideation process was a finalist in the MIX prize awarded through Harvard Business Review and McKinsey.
 
Reilly is a graduate of Emerson College and has her Master of Fine Arts degree from Maine Media Workshops + College.  She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Vice President board member of NAMLE (National Association for Media Literacy Educators) and serves on advisory boards, such as PBS Emmy-award winning Sci Girls and National Assessment of Educational Progress where she is helping to develop the first technology and engineering literacy assessment. Erin consults with private and public companies in the areas of mobile, creative strategy and transmedia projects.