Session Information
| Title | Alternate Reality Games: Interdisciplinary Designers, Designing Interactions |
| Presenter(s) | Beth Bonsignore, iSchool, University of Maryland
Rachel Donahue, iSchool, University of Maryland Georgina Goodlander, Luce Foundation Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum Kari Kraus, iSchool and Department of English, University of Maryland Marc Ruppel, Department of English, University of Maryland |
| Time | Thursday, October 21, 3:00p-4:00p |
| Location | Parlor C |
| Format | Panel |
| Description | This panel will examine Alternate Reality Games as multi-disciplinary design spaces that support creative, choreographed exchanges among diverse design practitioners. Panelists will survey design principles across four disciplines and sectors, with the ultimate goal of abstracting away from the details to see what is most relevant to games, specifically ARGs, and how these principles might coordinate with one another. The design approaches surveyed include Human Computer Interaction (HCI) design; Narrative Design; Graphic Design; and Outreach, Marketing, and Strategic Design. A secondary objective is to position educational and cultural institutions (universities, museums, libraries) as Designer-Players beyond industry and entertainment. Because universities are frequently incubators for the design methods under consideration (which are then transferred to memory institutions via what Marcia Bates terms "disciplines of the cultural record"), they function as zones of experimentation and methodological cross-pollination. Adopting a case set approach, the panel will anchor specific design concepts in concrete examples drawn from the cultural, academic, and commercial sectors, including Ghosts of a Chance, the first ARG played out in a museum environment. |