G4C 2009: Documentary Games: Ian Bogost's notes
As I haven't yet gotten around to blogging more concretely about Games for Change 2009 nor about Documentary Games... I'm thankful Ian Bogost has posted his notes from the panel.
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June 24, 2009
June 14, 2009
NPR interview
Please excuse tardiness and redundancy of this entry, but decided to post it for personal archiving reasons, as I realize now that I never did.
NPR interview "Online Game Peers into Life in Darfur Refugee Camp," by Michele Norris
J. Baldwin's "Design as Savior, Designer as Slave"
a very interesting read i just came across with many relevant thoughts to today's design discipline... a little disheartening (while remaining inspirational) considering these are J. Baldwin's words from 1991 and the situation/s he described might not be better today:
"When the environment protests by exhibiting intolerable degradation, the principal malefactors customarily dodge responsibility. Their captive designers abdicate. The corporate system is set up (designed!) to shield designers and their masters from financial ruin if protest grows strong. Corporate clout influences politics. Things are arranged so somebody else--most often taxpayers and the poor-- will foot the bill
Because the narrow-visioned thinking of specialists is well rewarded, particularly in academia, pernicious effects are invisible to those involved. The need for interdisciplinary effort is usually considered as a theoretical matter for future discussion, impractical, or as a turf-invasion to be repelled by bureaucratic maneuver. This situation is a veritable petri dish for culturing dishonesty and ineptitude.
The third force [he lists the first as "competition," the second as "specialization"] affecting an individuals effectiveness is the intuitively sensible urge to work for security. Security can he defined as ensuring the future will be to your personal advantage--another sort of "win." Our society condones the accompanying implication of selfishness. "Good old New England individualism"--long considered a traditional American value--may be translated as "I've got mine, and you can go to hell." This is not systemic thinking, It is not a useful mindset for a designer who needs to realize that true security is not to he had for anyone until all people live well, in a just and ecologically sustainable society."
full essay here
June 1, 2009
Games For Change 2009
The Games For Change 2009 Festival was great and enlightening this year, as it has been for its past 5 years. Full program here. A nice write-up about our "Documentary Games" panel here, from the Center for Social Media's blog. Also, check back with the G4C site shortly for videos of great panels and keynotes (NYTimes Nicholas Kristof and EA's Lucy Bradshaw).