How interactivity is afecting the artsJune 8, 2010, NY tech & the arts meetup

Gabe Smedresman@gabesmed

About Me

Degree: Architecture and Computer Science Profession: Game Designer and Web Developer Context: College Risk → Turf → Echo Team Place: San Francisco

Dabbled in many felds to be mentioned, but nowhere near the depth of the work I'll discuss here.

Games pull from the other arts, and resynthesize them to support meaningful interactivity.

We've developed new techniques for designing for interactivity in games.

Tese techniques are being taken up and furthered in their original felds.

Game design techniques are key to all of these new interactive forms of media.

Games and the arts

Film

Te presentation of many video games pull from flm.

(Max Payne)

Film

And games have expanded the possibilities of

storytelling with immersive cinematic sequences.

(Half Life)

Film

Now some flm directors are re-imagining cinema to explore interactivity.

(HBO Imagine)

Voting!

TV

Games have always benefted from the immersivity of a soundtrack.

Adaptive music splits a track into chunks and layers, then recombines them on the fy to adapt to player situation and game state.

Music

“Cellist and composer Zoe Keating uses live electronic sampling and repetition to layer the sound of her cello, creating multi-layered compositions which explore the boundary between the familiar and the strange, the ugly and beautiful, the dark and the transcendent.”

Music

“When lawyers are still discussing if RjDj is music or sofware we decided to call these sofware songs SCENES.

You will fnd scenes that are made to sing along and record yourself with beautiful realtime efects on your voice. Some scenes are designed like games and others are instruments.

And then we also have scenes which opened the world for augmented music because they are intertwined with the world around you through the sensors of your smart music player. All in all, RjDj is a new musical world.”

Music

Live Performance

Te Go Game builds interactive scavenger hunts with live actors, using a technological backend to co-ordinate teams.

Live Performance

Accomplice NY: “Part game, part theater, part tour. Using

the sprawling backdrop of the city as its stage, utilizing elements of improv theater

and scavenger hunt, Accomplice will make you

laugh, think, and experience the city in a whole new way.”

Live Performance

Punchdrunk's “SLEEP NO MORE”: “Part installation, part performance art, part adventure playground”

“And while moments of revelation were many, wandering alone through a foggy, abandoned Birnam Wood (really just Christmas trees in an auditorium) may well have been unforgettable. Certainly, I have been seeing it in dreams ever since.” - Timeout NY

Nonlinear Literature

(Mission Stencil Story)

Reactive Architecture

(NYC Subway)

Temes

Games are a second-order art: there is a loss of control that is unfamiliar to traditional practitioners, but empowering to create totally new forms.

Te ability of games to engage bodes well for the ability of these techniques to continue to enliven traditional arts and entertainment.

What can I do with this?

Game design:- Designers create rules (mechanics).- Audience experiences a unique interaction (dynamics).- Audience feels ________ (aesthetics).

Tis is explicit in game design, but implicit in all creation.

How do the explicit or implicit rules in what you do indirectly afect your audience's experience?

People doing interesting things

Accomplice NY - http://accomplicetheshow.com/Come Out & Play - http://comeoutandplay.org/Nina Simon - http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/ Jane McGonigal - http://avantgame.com/Fourth Wall Studios - http://www.fourthwallstudios.com/RjDj - http://rjdj.me/Ken Eklund - http://writerguy.com/

Tanks!

Gabe Smedresman

@gabesmedgabe@echoteamgo.com

http://smedresmania.com/