Experimenting with Format and FONM

I spent the latter part of last week at the “Frontiers of New Media” organized by some great folks at the University of Utah. You can get a sense of the conversation and the different talks over at their website, but I wanted to post here the contents of my talk, which were delivered with my freshly completed presentation system using Löve 2D and the Planet Cute tiles from Dank of Lost Garden. Overall I’ve been pleased with the current setup, which allows me to run around with an Xbox 360 Controller (wired or wireless with the RF adapter) during a talk.

I greatly enjoyed Dr. AnnaLee Saxenian‘s talk examining IT industries from Silicon Valley to China and India, which gave us a great deal to talk about. After listening to her, I’m particularly interested in where the videogame industry diverges from what I would call “the IT industry proper.” There certainly seem to be some interesting parallels, but also distinct differences. That is something that I’ll have to investigate further. There is also something interesting in how many of the game industry “Argonauts” going back to other countries actually have very little experience and instead have done so more due to lack of clear opportunities here in the United States, but significant opportunity to bring skills and expertise home.

Below is a first attempt at how I plan to post these new “presentations” given at conferences. Because they are “played” more than they are “presented,” I’ve had to adjust to some degree.

Frontiers of New Media (FONM) – Casey O’Donnell – 09/19/2009 from Casey O’Donnell on Vimeo.

If you are curious about the “engine” of sorts that I’ve assembled using Löve or any grisly technical details, feel free to ask. Next I hope to attempt using Osy and the Unity 3D engine as a space for constructing my presentations, but more about that shortly.