dimension 9
nine unexplored territories
May 6-12, 2006
"I Am More Than My Thumb" proposes an investigation into game interface and play possibilities when natural human gesture is the guide. Audience members can use their body to play the game, "Cloud" via Phasespace, an active optical motion capture system, and become immersed in the daydreams of a child trapped in a hospital, who imagines flying through clouds. By assuming that technology is going to develop to a point where we will no longer need a physical device to interface with gaming consoles and computers, "I Am More Than My Thumb" is an experience that examines how body-based interfaces will expand the experience of play, as well as increase the communicative possibilities of the game medium.
(For more details visit: http://www.kelleesantiago.com)
Kellee Santiago received her BFA in Theatre from New York University, after which she produced and managed a number of shows in NYC including "The Angel Project" with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and "'I'm Gonna Kill the President!'' A Federal Offense" at PS122. Since coming to USC, Kellee has focused on game design, interactive narrative, motion capture technology, and mixing things up. Her mission is to collaborate with multi-disciplined artists to develop innovative multi-media experiences in LBE, mobile media, in the home, and on the streets and highways.
Technophiles Anonymous amplifies the consequences of a perpetually connected, entertained, and "working" society. Participants converse with a virtual sponsor about their technology use. Confessional stories are added to a growing database of addictive behavior and technology's potential influences on society.
Andrew Sacher is completing his final year at USC’s School of Cinema-TV, following a successful career as an Experience Designer and Creative Producer for Walt Disney Imagineering, GameWorks, and Idealab. Past projects include environmental designs for Epcot, interactive exhibits for Baltimore Children’s museum, master planning for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and immersive gaming environments for Steven Spielberg. His mission is to “collaborate with visionary companies and organizations to develop innovative entertainment experiences for theme parks, LBE attractions, museums, digital games, mobile media, and the Internet.”
Darfur: Play your Part is a multiplayer online game that thematically explores the current crisis in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Its goal is to raise awareness about the crisis and to motivate and facilitate real-world activism. The narrative is based on the ordeal that thousands of Darfurians have suffered and continue to suffer – experiencing their villages attacked and destroyed, making dangerous journeys to camps in the hopes of finding security and sustenance, and hoping to one day soon return to what they can call home and thus to a sense of peace and normalcy. Additionally, the game explores the concept of divestment as a metaphor for gameplay in order to convey that Western university students can use it as a realistic and sensible tool for social change. For more information about the project, please visit www.darfurthesis.net
Susana Ruiz is a film and media artist whose research interests include the intersections between art, journalism, game design, and cinema. While a student at USC, Susana has learned a great deal about how narrative and design intermingle, and plans on communicating shock, distress, desire and hope through user-centric technology. Susana received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cooper Union in NYC. Susana also co-produced “Ah-Satan”, a database narrative project directed by Ashley York, about six individuals implicated in a murder and sentenced to eternity in prison.
Ah-Satan employs a database cinema and historiographic approach to a story about some individuals Ashley went to high school with who were implicated in a murder and sentenced to eternity in prison. During the performance, Ashley will mix the media - a collection of hundreds of pieces of evidentiary material, including personal interviews, local news reports and the police files - which will be projected on multiple surfaces throughout the immersive space. Each show is unique and allows for a new set of multilayered narrative threads. The project includes interviews with Berkeley Bell, Jason Bryant, Natasha Cornett, Dean Mullins and Joseph Risner.
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Ashley York is a documentary filmmaker and media artist whose research interests include live image performance, database narrative and non-fiction storytelling. While a student at USC, Ashley worked on the award-winning series, TransGeneration," which aired last fall on the Sundance Channel. Prior to coming to USC, Ashley received a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Kentucky.
Ashley also co-produced "Darfur: Play Your Part," a game directed by Susana Ruiz which seeks to raise awareness and incite social change.
SECT is an Internet application designed to be versatile, yet specifically tailored to a show and its fans. SECT aims to further enhance the enjoyment of a show by creating a mutual community between creators and fans, and provide show-specific tools for users. It allows viewers to connect live while watching a show, and grow a community by providing tools for meeting other fans, sharing user-created media, viewing exclusive content and other features. SECT is a first step to creating a virtual, interactive experience for viewers, and aims to capture and reinvigorate the social dynamics of watching television.
Julie Dillon is a Southern California native and received her BA in Public Relations at USC. She has been smitten with interactive television since she first heard of it, and has actively sought extensive knowledge of television and its industry. After graduation, Julie hopes to continue the development of her thesis and seek work in the business side of television.
Flow in Games is a unique methodology applicable by the frontline video game designers to implement player-centric dynamic Flow adjustment. Rather than passively using a monitor system to adjust game based on assumptions from limited in-game data, it uses player's subconscious choices to adjust the game actively for optimal experiences. Flow in Games offers a new perspective to understand video games and also helps analyzing why certain game-play had a wider appeal; certain part of the game plays worse than the others. It offers examples on how to analyze exsiting video game designs with active Flow and practical implementations on how to apply active Flow into specific game cases.
Jenova Chen was born in Shanghai China and came to the US in 2003. One of Jenova's greatest dreams is to bring the best things and messages to the world. Like what Hayao Miyazaki did to anime, Jenova wants to be one of the heroes who can make video game a more mature and adorable treasure shared by every human beings. He has B.SC from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a minor in Computer Art & Design from Donghua University, both in Shanghai, China. Jenova was the Lead Artist and Game Designer for Dyadin and Creative Director for Cloud, two award-winning games from USC-CNTV Interactive Media.
Communio is a 3 person cooperative game / art installation designed to combine the socially transformative power of play, and the perceptual manipulative powers of immersive media, to intensify the communal experience between participants. The installation consists of a 5.5’ diameter planetarium dome, upon which interactive graphics are projected. Participants lie down inside the dome and look up at the screen while wearing LED bracelets on each wrist, which are position tracked by a camera. By waving their hands participants are able to manipulate the graphics in order to cooperatively win an action/puzzle game.
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Bradley Newman is an interactive media artist focused on installations involving cooperative gameplay and gestural interfaces. Previous works include Semblance, an installation that tracked the movement of gallery visitors to manipulate a projected 3d world that served as a metaphoric representation of cognitive ideation. As well as Peekaboo, a live performance piece enabling dancers to reveal and mask projected video imagery synced to music. Other interests include visual music, immersive display technology, ludology / game design, and alternate reality games. He received his BFA from the College of Design at Iowa State University in 2002.
Telmahre is an interactive character drama that explores the defining moments that led to the descent of Tobias Rosseau, a man trapped by his fear of losing control. This project follows my interest in the exploration of a tragic character through interactive cinematics. The story structure is inspired by Janet Murray's theories on interactive tragedy, as well as ritual storytelling methods developed by the early Christian Church. The presentation style, which features live-action video and 360-degree node-based navigation, is based on the first-person adventure game genre, particularly the Myst Series. Telmahre will run on Windows PCs via the Tantallon Engine, and will be for a general audience.
Michael Steffen has produced over 20 film and digital video shorts and has a background in Computer Science with a BA from UC-San Diego. He has a strong interest in writing and acting which he often does for his own projects, such as the stereoscopic short “The Third Dimension” and “Escape Behavior”. Michael’s core research interest is interactive dramatic narrative.
In Journey of Jin, you join Jin, a tribal warrior, on his quest through the deserts and jungles of UD to find a cure for the plague that is overcoming his people, the Menwabe. Battle fierce monsters, by hand, or with the ancient magic arts, explore strange new lands, and discover plot-twisting events. Journey of Jin is of a quality rarely seen in the mobile gaming market, thanks to the rich possibilities of Adobe’s FlashLite. Journey of Jin is a FlashLite 2.0 application intended for Symbian Series 60 smart phones, meant for monthly episodic release. Using only the 5-way Directional-Pad for simple universal control, each episode is a 3-5 minute experience. The core turn-based 2d10(2 rolls of a ten-sided die) casual Role Playing Game (RPG) engine is book ended by an evolving comic like cartoon.
Stephen Erin Dinehart, IV is a multimedia artist and professional designer who received his BFA from the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, in 2001. An entrepreneur, and transformer, by breed he has produced music, film, and freelanced as a graphic, interactive and sound designer since 1995. His works have spanned the gamut from “Mother”(2003), a series of finely thrown porcelain vessels with fertility goddesses affixed center, to “Mudapple” (2005), a web-based beat-hop album.