Fixtures of the domestic interior, computer and video games, and the platforms that run them seem woefully remote from the proliferating concerns of the outer world, prominent among them global climate change, loss of biodiversity, and debates over energy production. However, contemporary games may offer quantitatively and qualitatively distinctive opportunities for the representation of pressing ecological quandaries. Games not only meld the computational advantages of programming-driven processes with the aesthetic range of literature and cinema but, more importantly, render environmental outcomes and ethics into powerfully playable scenarios.
Professor Alenda Y. Chang received an M.A. in English from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley. With a multidisciplinary background in biology, literature, and film, she combines ecocritical theory with the analysis of contemporary media. Her current project, Playing Nature, offers an ecological perspective on computer and video games. She also maintains the Growing Games blog, a resource for scholars in game and ecomedia studies and the environmental humanities ( http://growinggames.net/ ).
When
4:30-5:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Where
Digital Media Center Commons
Lower Level, Merlin D. Bishop Center
Digital Media & Design Department
Twitter: @UConnDMD Facebook: UConnDMD
The Digital Directions speaker series is sponsored by the Digital Media & Design Department of the School of Fine Arts, University of Connecticut. Look for upcoming talks in May and Fall Semester 2014.
For more information, contact: DMD at 860-486-6765