In Brisbane this September 26 & 27, Griffith Film School and Griffith Centre for Creative Arts Research will for the first time in Australia host the International Joint Conference on Serious Games, presenting keynotes, workshops, exhibitions and panels on the latest developments. Held at The Edge (State Library of Queensland), the conference will be opened by Professor Paul Mazerolle, Pro Vice Chancellor Arts, Education and Law at Griffith University, and will focus on pushing the boundaries of gaming, and exploring the creative interplay between film and game design.
Keynote speakers also include Tracy Fullerton, Assoc. Professor and Director of USC’s Games Program, presenting “Slow Play: Imagining the Serious Worlds of Walden and The Night Journey”; and Sara de Freitas, former Serious Games Institute Director of Research and current Pro Vice Chancellor and Professor of Learning and Teaching at Murdoch University, Perth, presenting “The Efficacy of Gamification: Motivation, Flow and Feedback.”
Invited speakers will be Jon Weinbren, Head of the Games Department at National Film and Television School (UK), presenting “Games with Meaning and Consequence”; and acclaimed academic and specialist on mental health within games Ben Schouten, presenting “Playful Empowerment, the role of game design innovation in participatory citizenship.”
“The thrust of Serious Games development is to provide deeper experience and emotions,” says Conference Chair Dr. Tim Marsh, Lecturer in Games Design at Griffith Film School. “As well as to educate, Serious Games have the potential to alter behaviour, raise awareness, and effect real change. The technological and artistic innovation in serious games and gamification is creating new ways to play, interact and experience. Essentially, they are games with purpose.”
The conference’s “Art with Purpose” exhibition will showcase nine works encompassing a variety of experiences. One of these is a non-explicit, erotic tablet touch experience designed around the female orgasm, Le Petite Mort from Patrick Jarnfelt and Andrea Hasselager (Loveable Hat Cult). Also of note is VR Rides, a VR headset experience for use with a stationary bicycle that aims to reduce the risk of developing dementia, from Kiran Ijaz, Yifan Wang, David Milne and Rafael Calvo of University of Sydney.
Also on display at Art with Purpose will be Vietnam War simulation Transmission (Daniel Galbraith and Sean Fitzpatrick, GFS), relaxation tool Arty Swirly Colourful (Thomas Hanley, GFS), wind and pollution study Blown Away (Sydney 365, 2014) (Brigid Costello, Univ. of New South Wales), Coming Through: an animated experience of postnatal depression (Andi Spark, GFS), VR Immersive Slow Reef Experience (Tim Marsh, Nathan Jensen, Whitney Constantine and Elliot Miller, GFS), A Game of Horseshoes for the Ineffectual Martyr 0.2 (Madeleine Boyd and Jason Haggerty), and de.form (Tyson Foster, GFS).
