| February 22, 2017 | ||
| 4:00 pm | to | 5:30 pm |
Source: Keywords for Video Game Studies: Nature | Department of Women’s and Gender Studies
Keywords for Video Game Studies
Speaker series
Second lecture: Nature
Date: February 22, 2017
Time: 4:00 – 5:30 pm
Location: EMU 023, Lease Crutcher Lewis Room, University of Oregon
WINTER 2017: NATURE
“The Problem of Modeling (and Rendering) Trees” with Alenda Chang
Can you commune with nature in a video game? The rise of so-called “walking simulator” games suggests that you can, even as games remain undertheorized as environmental systems. Ranging from first-person walkers, to plant modeling software and asset libraries, to gestural terraforming in virtual reality, this presentation will outline just a few of the ways in which the environmental humanities can contribute to the future of game studies.
Alenda Y. Chang is an Assistant Professor in Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara. With a multidisciplinary background in biology, literature, and film, she specializes in merging ecocritical theory with the analysis of contemporary media. Her writing has recently been featured in Ant Spider Bee, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, and Qui Parle, and her current book project develops ecological frameworks for understanding and designing digital games. She also maintains the Growing Games blog as a resource for researchers in game and ecomedia studies and the environmental humanities.
