Session Information

Colleen Macklin is the Director of PETLab (Prototyping Education and Technology Lab) and Associate Professor at Parsons The New School for Design. Colleen develops games for experimental learning and social engagement. PETLab projects include a curriculum in game design for the Boys and Girls Club, a set of statistical games for the Red Cross Climate Centre, and big games such as Re:Activism and the "fiscal" sport Budgetball. She is a member of the game design collectives Local No. 12, known for their card game the Metagame and The Leisure Collective. Her work has been shown at Come Out and Play, SoundLab, The Whitney Museum for American Art and Creative Time. BFA, Media Arts Pratt Institute, graduate studies in Computer Science, CUNY and International Affairs, The New School. Learn more about Colleen.

As a profession, most discourse around game design focuses on how to make better, more effective games - whether they're for entertainment, learning, or social change. This talk proposes to do something different: to look at the act of making games as a radical practice in and of itself. We'll look at case studies in teaching game design to transgress (à la bell hooks), the practices and potentials of the game design community, and the use of participatory design and co-design for community-based games.