Heather Kelley: 'When Will Games Start Making Sense?'

DC Speaker Series - Heather Kelley

Abstract:
Immersive games and virtual reality are transporting play and stories from the flat screen into the real, physical world. While most everyday digital experiences are confined to screens and haven’t yet embraced the complete richness of the human sensory experience, game designers should be on the forefront of changing that.  Award-winning designer, curator and indie game community builder Heather Kelley will present work from her twenty-year game and experimental interactive development and design career, to highlight her work bringing new players into games, and creating new interactive experiences for the whole range of the human senses. Her talk will introduce some basic concepts and questions of designing for new forms of sensory and social engagement and point the way forward with design questions that remain to tackle. 

Bio:
Heather Kelley (@PerfectPlum) is an award-winning game designer, media artist and curator  She is a founder of the experimental game collective Kokoromi, with whom she produced and curated the renowned GAMMA events from 2006–10, promoting experimental games as creative expression in a social context. In 2016, Kokoromi released the retrofuturistic VR puzzle game "SUPERHYPERCUBE." Kelley was named by Fast Company magazine as one of 2011’s thirty most influential women in technology. In 2012, she co-curated "Joue le jeu," a groundbreaking 5000 m2 exhibition of video games and commissioned play installations in Paris, France. Kelley’s extensive career in game development has included design and production of touchscreen vibrator controllers, AAA next-generation console games, interactive smart toys, mobile and handheld games, research games, installation games, and web communities for girls. In 2015, she became assistant teaching professor in the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University.

Andrew Luna
School of Arts, Media, and Engineering
Andrew.Luna@asu.edu
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Stauffer B-Wing, room B125