SWEATblog

The talk was part of the freshman orientation week held every fall. The university attempts to start the freshman off with strong models and to impress the parents of the students -- who are invited to tag along.

The survey is an expansion of one of the appendices of the essay "Pixels Politics and Play" originally published by Intelligent Agent, an online journal of new media art, and is an attempt to reason the context and peer community of which SWEAT is a part. The games mentioned were: Hidden Agenda, Maria Sisters, Escape From Woomera, 9-11 Survivor, Waco Ressurection, Second Life, Activate 3 (from Rethinking Wargames), Under Ash, Slow Death", September 12th & Madrid from Newsgaming, and of course Crosser™ & La Migra™, and the fragments of Juan and the Beanstalk available elsewhere on this site. By expanding this section of the paper I hope to create some kind of critical assesment of these games, and create a critical context for ours.

The scary part of speaking to this audience was that my critique through the games we create is inherently political, and it doesn't seem to be a time in which reasonable people can differ civilly on questions of politics in this country. The audience reacted civilly, though -- with the house lights up -- I could tell there were individuals who where uncomfortable with certain opinions that were expressed. They laughed at the funny bits and clapped at the end.

I will continue re-working this portion, out loud and in public, until I'm ready to commit it to print. Watch for it.