The Creativity of Web Design, Indie Video Games and Fans

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There has been much talk about support for public television this past week​ and so it is time to visit PBS Off Book once again to remind ourselves of the great work PBS Digital is doing. From indie video games, featuring many great games I've played and highly endorse, to the creation of websites and the powerful role of fans in shaping not only the niche cultures they passionately love but also society as a whole, these three mini documentaries showcase the best the studio is producing. 

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​The video game industry is now bigger than Hollywood, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent developing these interactive experiences. But there are also small-scale developers working in the indie game realm, creating unique and experimental video games without the budgets of the larger "AAA" games. These indie game developers devote time, money, and take great risks in a quest to realize their creative vision. They deftly balance game mechanics & systems, sound & visuals, and an immersive storytelling experience to push the gaming medium into revolutionary new territory. Much like indie music or indie film, the indie gaming movement provides a creative outlet for game designers who want to work outside of the mainstream.

Featuring:

Jamin Warren, Kill Screen Magazine
​​Zach Gage, creator of Spelltower
​Darren Korb, audio designer of Bastion
​Eddy Boxerman & Andy Nealen, creators of Osmos
​Leigh Alexander, gaming journalist

Complete list of games featured.​

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The explosion of the internet over the past 20 years has led to the development of one of the newest creative mediums: the website. Web designers have adapted through the technological developments of html, CSS, Flash, and JavaScript, and have mastered the balance between creativity and usability. Now with the advance of mobile, the greatest websites have taken user experience and responsive design to the next level, and continue our evolution from print to a digital world.

Featuring:

Jeffrey Zeldman
​Jason Santa Maria
​Whitney Hess 

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Before the mass media, people actively engaged with culture through storytelling and expanding well-known tales. Modern fan culture connects to this historical tradition, and has become a force that challenges social norms and accepted behavior. Whether the issue is gender, sexuality, subversiveness, or even intellectual property law, fans participate in communities that allow them to think outside of what is possible in more mainstream scenarios. "Fannish" behavior has become its own grassroots way of altering our society and culture, and a means of actively experiencing one's own culture. In a sense, fans have changed from the faceless adoring masses, to people who are proud of their identity and are stretching the boundaries of what is considered "normal". 

Featuring:

Prof. Francesca Coppa, Muhlenberg College 
​Chris Menning, editor at Modern Primate
​Amanda Brennan, researcher at Know Your Meme 
​Dr. Whitney Phillips, lecturer at NYU
​Alexa Dacre, fan fiction writer
​Naomi Novik, Organization for Transformative Works

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Previously:

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

What happens when old school games go face to face with new school characters?

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A little bit of Friday fun to end the week. Don't miss the behind the scenes video. ​

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Sight: A Short Film About Augmented Reality & Gamification

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Sight is a fantastic short futuristic student film by Eran May-raz and Daniel Lazo.​ It presents an interesting possibility of a world governed by augmented reality and gamification. It made me think of Google's Project Glass and Foursquare. 

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Minecraft, Dubstep & the Olympics: Trying To Figure Out What More We Can Do

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It's time again to catch up with Idea Channel (seriously, subscribe.) This time host Mike Rugnetta explores the boundaries of what we can imagine, create and do, plus makerbots.

From the Jetsons to Cory Doctorow, science fiction writers of all stripes have imagined a world where any object could be instantly created. Modern economics on the other hand, is built on the principle of competition for scarce resources. And while it may not seem like a video game and printer could alter this economic reality, we beg to differ. Minecraft's creative mode is the perfect vehicle for understanding a Post-Scarcity world; a place where resources are permanently available and constantly regenerated. It shows that with unlimited resources, people end up creating amazing digital structures! Of course, a world of infinitely available resources seems pretty fantastical until you consider the Makerbot and the future of 3D printing. The Makerbot is an at home device that allow you to print real three dimensional objects, meaning a Minecraftian future where you can print anything you want at anytime might not be that far away.
Dubstep. Is. Awesome. While some people may hear noise, we hear amazing musical genius. The aural creativity of Dubstep, and its embrace of inharmonic sounds, makes it the most recent member of the long-established Avant Garde community. There is a long history of avant garde musicians and thinkers promoting the concept of noise and non-instrumental sounds as MUSIC, much to the horror of their audience. But over the past century, changes in technology and music genres have primed listeners, allowing mainstream audiences to enjoy the beautiful noise of Skrillex, Bassnectar & the whole Dubstep movement.
Everyone is obsessed with the Olympics right now, watching these geniuses push the boundaries of their field. Wait, did we say GENIUSES? Yes! We normally associate the word "genius" with intellectual accomplishments, but athletes are geniuses at pushing their bodies to new heights, making the impossibly difficult seem easy and effortless. While it might not seem like it, genius of any kind requires financial and cultural support. In a world where athletes are developed and celebrated, more so than scientists or artists, it makes sense that we turn to the Olympics as a model for fostering genius. 
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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Children and Computers: State of Play→

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If I'm honest, my son – and even his sister, who's one and a half – have an ease around technology that I find scary sometimes. The baby scares me because she keeps deleting stuff off my iPad. Patrick scares me because he could use the Nintendo Wii controls, shift from game to game, choose players, set up teams by the time he was four. He still can't tie his shoelaces. There is research that says he is not alone: a survey of 2,200 mothers in 11 countries found that 70% of their two- to five-year-olds were comfortable playing computer games, but only 11% could pass the shoelace test.

Miranda Sawyer, writing for The Observer, takes a look at children's natural affinity towards technology and innate understanding of interfaces particularly complex ones found in video games. ​

I recently saw a very young child, she must've been about 4, get her mom's iPad, push the home button, enter the lock pin code, find the video app by scrolling through several screens, find the video she wanted to watch and then scrub the video to the right location she wanted to see again. The whole thing was perfectly natural to her. I was floored that she understood how to slow down and speed up her scrubbing by how she dragged on the timeline. 

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Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.