Playing by the Rules: The Cultural Policy Challenges of Video Games



October 26, 2001 - 9:00am to October 27, 2001 - 9:00pm

Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave

The University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center assembled scholars of policy, education, law, and the arts along with experts from the nonprofit and corporate sectors to discuss the social impact of video games and ways of encouraging innovation and development in positive social directions.

Major funding from the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation and the Markle Foundation. Additional support from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the University of Chicago & Argonne Laboratory Computation Institute, the Renaissance Society, and Jamee Rosa.


Papers

Press coverage

Agenda

Speakers


Papers

David Walsh, National Institute on Media and the Family 
Paper: "Video Game Violence and Public Policy"

Jeffrey Goldstein, Social and Organizational Psychology, Utrecht University 
Paper: "Does Playing Violent Video Games Cause Aggressive Behavior?"

Richard Epstein, Law School, University of Chicago
Paper: "What Me Worry? A Non-Player's Non-Lament"

Craig Anderson, Psychology, Iowa State University
Paper: "Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature" (with Brad J. Bushman)

Noah Falstein, The Inspiracy 
Paper: "The Convergence Conundrum"

Stephan Meyers, mobile entertainment consultant 
Paper: "Social policy issues of mobile games"

Celia Pearce, Claire Trevor School of Arts at The University of California, Irvine 
Paper: from Emergent Authorship: The Next Interactive Revolution

Jonathan Freedman, Psychology, University of Toronto 
Paper: "Evaluating the Research on Violent Video Games"

Jeanne Funk, Psychology, University of Toledo 
Paper: "Children and Violent Video Games: Are There 'High Risk' Players?"

Mary Engle, Federal Trade Commission 
Paper: "The Violence Debate II"

Marjorie Heins, Free Expression Policy Project, National Coalition Against Censorship 
Paper: BRIEF AMICI CURIAE for American Amusement Machine Ass'n v. Teri Kendrick, et al.

Marsha Kinder, Cinema-Television, USC 
Paper: "Violent Ruptures"

Gail Markels, Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) 
Paper: Memorandum in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion in Interactive Digital Software Association et al v. St. Louis County, Missouri

Jeanne Funk, Psychology, University of Toledo 
Paper: "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"

Laura Groppe, Girl Games Inc. 
Paper: "Teen Girl Gaming: The New Paradigm"

Henry Jenkins, Comparative Media Studies, MIT 
Paper: "From Barbie To Mortal Kombat: Further Reflections"

Gerard Jones, author of Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy Games, Superheroes and Make-Believe Violence
Paper: "Vampire Slayers"

Terry Hackett, eLearning Division, Deloitte Consulting 
Paper: "Designing Educational Computer Experiences"

Yasmin Kafai, Kids Interactive Design Studios, UCLA 
Paper: "The Educational Potential of Electronic Games: From Games-to-teach to Games-to-learn"

Alan Pope, Langley Research Center, NASA 
Paper: "Helping Video Games 'Rewire Our Minds'"

Marc Prensky, games2train.com 
Paper: "What Kids Learn from Video Games"

Eugene Provenzo, Jr., Education, University of Miami 
Paper: from Children and Hyperreality

Sara Diamond, The Banff Centre for the Arts 
Paper: "Code Zebra: Theorizing Discourse and Play"

Ellen Sandor, (art)n 
Paper: "On the Art of Playing with Shadows" co-authored by Janine Fron

Yuri Tsivian, Cinema & Media Studies, University of Chicago 
Paper: "Lintsbakh Machine"

Eric Zimmerman, gameLab, Inc. 
Paper: "Thinkpiece"


Press coverage

"Policing virtual violence in an anxious new world"
Chicago Tribune November 15, 2001


Agenda

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26

Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave
Public Roundtable Discussions

VIDEO GAMES AND CIVIL SOCIETY

9:00 - 11:00 a.m.

Moderator: Robert Pippin, Raymond W. and Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished Service Professor, Committee on Social Thought and Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago

What is the impact of video games on the various aspects of civil society? What kinds of social relations do various game genres and game-playing formats promote? Some say that video games foster a healthy competitiveness, and, in their multi-player internet manifestations, contain vast new possibilities for community-building. Others see video games as isolating and damaging to both individuals and communities. What does the research show?

Confirmed Panelists:

  • Sara Diamond, The Banff Centre for the Arts
  • Marjorie Heins, Free Expression Policy Project, National Coalition Against Censorship
  • J.C. Herz, Joystick Nation, Inc.
  • Seth Killian, Shoryuken.com
  • W.J.T. Mitchell, Art History and Editor of Critical Inquiry, University of Chicago
  • Celia Pearce, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, UC-Irvine
  • Eugene Provenzo, Jr., Education, University of Miami
  • Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago Law School
  • Eric Zimmerman, gameLab, Inc.

THE PEDAGOGICAL POSSIBILITIES OF INTERACTIVE GAMES

11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Moderator: Colm O'Muircheartaigh, Public Policy and NORC, University of Chicago

What ways of thinking and learning, intellectual skills and habits, does game playing encourage or discourage? How much influence do interactive games have on the cognitive development of players of different ages? Are the skills of game playing transferable to other educational endeavors, and if so, how? Answers to these questions should help policymakers identify and support best practices in the fusion of video game technology and education.

Confirmed Panelists:

  • Hubert Dreyfus, Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley
  • Noah Falstein, The Inspiracy
  • Laura Groppe, girlGames Research Lab
  • Terry Hackett, eLearning Division, Deloitte Consulting
  • Yasmin Kafai, Kids Interactive Design Studios, UCLA
  • Alan Pope, Langley Research Center, NASA
  • Marc Prensky, games2train.com
  • Andrew Rosenfield, UNext

VIDEO GAME VIOLENCE: RESEARCH FINDINGS, POLICY OPTIONS, AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS

2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Moderator: Jack Doppelt, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism

Expert witnesses debate what the research tells us about the psychological effects, if any, of playing violent video games; policy analysts and policymakers discuss if and how they would formulate regulations or create incentives; industry representatives and anti-violence activists clarify the stakes involved; and legal experts assess the constitutionality of these proposals.

Confirmed Panelists:

  • Craig Anderson, Psychology, Iowa State University
  • Mary Engle, Federal Trade Commission
  • Jonathan Freedman, University of Toronto
  • Henry Jenkins, Comparative Media Studies, MIT
  • Gerard Jones, author of Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy Games, Superheroes and Make-Believe Violence
  • Marsha Kinder, Cinema-Television, USC
  • Doug Lowenstein, Interactive Digital Software Association
  • Geoffrey Stone, Provost and Law School, University of Chicago
  • David Walsh, Media and the Family

SATURDAY OCTOBER 27

On the University of Chicago Campus
Donnelley Biological Sciences Learning Center (BSLC)
924 East 57th Street, Rooms 205, 218
Paper Panel Sessions for Academic and Policy Stakeholders

SESSION 1

9:00 - 10:30 a.m.

Panel 1A: Convergences of creativity and commerce: what is the future of interactive game arts?

Chair: Tom Gunning, Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago

As computers and digital communications pervade all areas of life, games spread with them. What role does the game play in the new digital economy? Are we entering an age of ubiquitous entertainment, or entertainment monopolies, and if so, what are the effects on culture? Does convergence help or hinder independent production and variety of games? What kinds of interactivity do games bring to other electronic media applications? And is there a public interest in shaping relations among these cultural industries?

Confirmed Panelists:

  • Richard Epstein, Law School, University of Chicago
  • Noah Falstein, The Inspiracy
  • Seth Killian, Shoryuken.com
  • Stephan Meyers, consultant, wireless entertainment
  • Celia Pearce, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, UC-Irvine

Panel 1B: The Violence Debate I: What does the evidence show?

Chair: John Cacioppo, Psychology, University of Chicago

What does the best research on video games and violence really tell us (or fail to tell us) about the relation between violent video game play and violent behavior?

Confirmed Panelists:

  • Craig Anderson, Psychology, Iowa State University
  • Jonathan Freedman, Psychology, University of Toronto
  • Jeanne Funk, Psychology, University of Toledo
  • Jeffrey Goldstein, Social and Organizational Psychology, Utrecht University

SESSION 2

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Panel 2A: The Violence Debate II: The First Amendment, the FTC Report, and Legal Strategies

Chair: J. Mark Schuster, Urban Studies and Planning, MIT and Visiting Professor of Cultural Policy, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago

What regulatory tools and legal weapons are available to those interested in monitoring, controlling or sanctioning those who violate agreed-upon self-imposed standards? What protections from such censorship efforts do video games enjoy under the First Amendment? What does history tell us about efforts to regulate – and efforts to self-regulate – popular culture?

Confirmed Panelists:

  • Mary Engle, Federal Trade Commission
  • Jeffrey Goldstein, Social & Organizational Psychology, University of Utrecht
  • Marjorie Heins, Free Expression Policy Project, National Coalition Against Censorship
  • Marsha Kinder, Cinema-Television, USC
  • Gail Markels, Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA)
  • David Walsh, Media and the Family

Panel 2B: Gamers and Gender

Chair: Lawrence Rothfield, associate professor, English & Comparative Literature and faculty director, Cultural Policy Center

How can we best understand how computer games affect the gender attitudes and identities of those who play them? And what steps could be taken to make video games more open to a variety of subjective experiences?

Confirmed Panelists:

  • Jeanne Funk, Psychology, University of Toledo
  • Laura Groppe, Girl Games Inc.
  • J.C. Herz, Joystick Nation, Inc.
  • Henry Jenkins, Comparative Media Studies, MIT
  • Gerard Jones, author of Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy Games, Superheroes and Make-Believe Violence

SESSION 3

2:00 - 3:30 p.m.

Panel 3A: Playing With Your Brain

Chair: Howard Margolis, Public Policy, University of Chicago

What does recent research about childhood development, models of intelligence, and different learning styles tell us about the impact of video-game play on the minds of young people?

Confirmed Panelists:

  • Terry Hackett, e-learning Division, Deloitte Consulting
  • Yasmin Kafai, Kids Interactive Design Studios, UCLA
  • Alan Pope, Langley Research Center, NASA
  • Marc Prensky, games2train.com
  • Eugene Provenzo, Jr., Education, University of Miami

Panel 3B: The Future of Video Games as an Art

Chair: Kim Rorschach, The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago

The video game industry today is a magnet for creative talent, talent reflected in the increasing complexity, sophistication, beauty, and variety of game design. How is the art form itself likely to evolve over the next decade? Should we be concerned about the fact that this creative surge is taking place for the most in the commercial sector? Should policies be devised to encourage the development of independent and/or non-profit video-game design (comparable to independent film)?

Confirmed Panelists:

  • Sara Diamond, The Banff Centre for the Arts
  • Joe McKay, computer-based artist
  • Feng Mengbo, video game artist, Beijing
  • Ellen Sandor, (art)n
  • Yuri Tsivian, Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago
  • Hamza Walker, The Renaissance Society
  • Eric Zimmerman, gameLab, Inc.

FINAL SESSION: 7:00 - 9:00 P.M.

Video on Video: Documentaries of Video Game Culture

Two University of Chicago cinema and media studies graduate students, Kaveh Askari and Michelle Puetz, have produced a documentary of video game subcultures in the Chicago area. This evening we will screen their work, followed by Q&A with the filmmakers and some video game enthusiasts who appear in the documentary. All are welcome to attend.


Speakers

JOHN CACIOPPO, PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

John T. Cacioppo is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor at The University of Chicago. He is the Director of the Social Psychology Program at The University of Chicago and the co-Director of the Institute for Mind and Biology. Before going to The University of Chicago, Cacioppo served on the faculty at the University of Notre Dame (1977-1979), the University of Iowa (1979-1989), and Ohio State University (1989-1999). The general perspective Cacioppo takes in his research is social neuroscience. Social and biological approaches to human behavior have traditionally been contrasted, as if the two were antagonistic or mutually exclusive. However, the mechanisms underlying the mind and social behavior are not fully explicable by a biological or a social approach alone, and Cacioppo's work combines these approaches. He is the co-author of The Handbook of Psychophysiology, 2nd. Edition (Cambridge UP, 2000), and co-author of "The Psychophysiology of Emotion" in R. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), The Handbook of Emotion, 2nd Edition (Guilford Press, 2000).

SARA DIAMOND, TELEVISION AND NEW MEDIA, MEDIA & VISUAL ARTS, THE BANFF CENTRE FOR THE ARTS

Sara Diamond is a television and new media producer/director, video artist, curator, critic, teacher and artistic director. She is currently the Executive Producer for Television and New Media and the Artistic Director of Media and Visual Arts at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Diamond is responsible for developing the artistic and professional direction of Media and Visual Arts, developing research perspectives, New Media Institute workshops and think tanks, co-productions, artists' residencies and partnerships, and work study opportunities in key areas. She is also responsible for the publishing initiatives of Media and Visual Arts and the Walter Phillips Gallery as well as collaborations with the Aboriginal Arts program and other departments of the Banff Centre for the Arts. Among her accomplishments at the Centre, Diamond developed and implemented artist based video practice, television co-productions of artists' works in video and video installation support. She has been active in script development, critics' residencies, artists' Internet projects (NOMAD NET) and new media research consulting for authoring tools and interactive media. Diamond also developed the Memory/History creative residency, Dance Screen, the Eight Minute Opera Project and Interactive Screen program. She worked closely with the Aboriginal Film and Video Art Alliance to develop the self-government project at The Banff Centre and to practice self-government in developing programs for Aboriginal artists as well as curated special screenings for festivals and events such as Mill Valley, California, the Vancouver Film Festival and Video Positive, England. Committed to exploring new forms, she created a prototype development environment for interactive media projects and continues to curate one or two major exhibitions each year. In recent years, she has worked increasingly with research and development projects in software, has consulted in developing interactive media curriculum and events and has created think tanks that bring together cultural industries, new media content producers, artists and investors. Diamond is also a visiting professor at UCLA.

JACK DOPPELT, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY MEDILL SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM

Jack C. Doppelt is associate professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, editor and publisher of On the Docket (a web site on the U.S. Supreme Court), the director of the Medill global journalism program, and a faculty associate at Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research. He is co-author of the widely praised book Nonvoters: America's No Shows, which has generated followup projects, funded by Pew Charitable Trusts, including "YVOTE 2000: Politics of a New Generation" and "YVOTE: A Dialogue with America's No-Shows." Doppelt is also co-author of The Journalism of Outrage: Investigative Reporting and Agenda Building in America, a book on investigative reporting and its influence on public policy. His expertise is media law and ethics, and the reporting of legal affairs. Doppelt has published numerous articles on libel, the media's influence on the criminal justice system and media coverage of the legal system, including the drug trial of former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega and a report for the Inspector General of the Department of Children and Family Services on "Confidentiality, the News Media and the Joseph Wallace Case." A graduate of Grinnell College and the University of Chicago Law School, Doppelt clerked for Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas J. Moran before becoming an investigative reporter and news producer. As an investigative journalist for the Better Government Association and WBBM-Newsradio in Chicago, he broke stories on court corruption, housing dangers and governmental conflicts of interest.

HUBERT DREYFUS, PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

Hubert Dreyfus is currently Philosophy Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. at Harvard University and has taught at Brandeis University and MIT. His publications include: What Computers (Still) Can't Do, 3rd edition, MIT Press, (translated into ten languages); Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Division I of Being and Time; (with Paul Rabinow) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics; (with Stuart Dreyfus) Mind over Machine; (with Charles Spinosa and Fernando Flores) Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity; and, recently, On the Internet. As his publications suggest, Dreyfus thinks of himself as an applied philosopher reflecting on the bearing of the work of existential thinkers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty on current cultural developments such as the attempt to create artificial intelligence, and the effect of the Internet and various technologies that facilitate action at a distance on everyday human interactions.

NOAH FALSTEIN, THE INSPIRACY

Noah Falstein has been a professional computer and video game developer since 1980. He has worked for many of the major game companies, including LucasArts, 3DO, Dreamworks Interactive, Disney Interactive, and created many hit titles. He is a former Chairman of the Computer Game Developer's Association, and he sat on the Violence in Games committee of International Game Developer's Association. Noah has designed a game for East3 to help kids with ADD control their problems through Neurofeedback, and he is currently completing a game funded by the NIH to teach nutrition to 9-12 year-olds. Future projects include games to help kids with cancer stay on their treatment plans, and a game to help young women avoid unwanted pregnancies. Noah has been a speaker for many conferences and professional organizations including the Game Developer's Conference, E3, UCLA, Loyola-Marymount University, San Francisco State University, Digital Hollywood Conference, Software Publisher's Association, and the European Multimedia Association. He leads The Inspiracy.

JONATHAN FREEDMAN, PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Professor Jonathan Freedman is a leading academic voice in North America arguing that there is no proven connection between violent entertainment and violent behavior, a conclusion he drew again in 2000 after he completed a comprehensive review of the research. He is the author of many articles on the subject, including "Effect of Television Violence on Aggressiveness" (1984), "Television Violence and Aggression: What Psychologists Should Tell the Public" (1992), and "Violence in the Mass Media and Violence in Society: The Link Is Unproven" (1996).

JEANNE FUNK, PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO

Jeanne Funk is Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Psychology Department at the University of Toledo. The problem of violence in society and its impact on children is her general area of research interest. Specifically, she examines the impact of media violence, particularly violence in video and computer games, on children's adjustment and behavior. She is currently working on several projects in this area. One study evaluates relationships between playing moderately violent games and empathy in kindergarteners. She is also conducting focus groups to learn about children's experience of game playing. She is involved in outcome research on a violence prevention program being carried out in area schools. She testified before the Senate in March 2000 about video game violence, and has many publications and presentations.

JEFFREY GOLDSTEIN, SOCIAL & ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF UTRECHT

Jeffrey Goldstein was professor of psychology at Temple University (Philadelphia) and visiting professor at the University of London, and is now with the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. His books include The Psychology of Humor (Academic Press), Sports, Games, and Play (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), Aggression and Crimes of Violence (Oxford University Press), which won the Best Book award from the International Society for Research on Aggression, 1988, Sports Violence (Springer-Verlag), Toys, Play and Child Development (Cambridge University Press), and Why We Watch: The Attractions of Violent Entertainment (Oxford University Press, 1998), which he edited with support from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. With Joost Raessens he is currently preparing the Handbook of Computer Game Studies for MIT Press. Goldstein is a fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. As a consultant on children and media, Prof. Goldstein summarizes scholarly research for clients around the world. He is chairman of the National Toy Council (London) and serves on the Academic Advisory Board of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (New York) and the Netherlands Institute for the Classification of Audiovisual Media.

LAURA GROPPE, GIRL GAMES INC.

Founder and CEO of Girl Games, Laura Groppe is an entertainment industry leader and a pioneer in producing technology for teen girls. She has been recognized by publications including Forbes, Time, and Newsweek as a leader in hands-on knowledge of the teen girl demographic, and she is in constant demand as a speaker at conferences on technology and teens. In her previous life, Laura had a successful seven-year career in Hollywood. Laura's talents and contacts in the entertainment industry have proven to be tremendous assets in helping Girlgames succeed. Her entertainment achievements include an Academy Award in 1992 for Best Short Film, "Session Man", four MTV awards in 1994 for co-producing R.E.M.'s music video "Everybody Hurts", and an award for "Best Cinematography" at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in 1994 for co-producing the feature film, "Suture".

TOM GUNNING, CINEMA & MEDIA STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Tom Gunning works on problems of film style and interpretation, film history and film culture. His published work (approximately one hundred publications) has concentrated on early cinema as well as on the culture of modernity from which cinema arose, relating it to still photography, stage melodrama, and magic lantern shows as well as wider cultural concerns such as the tracking of criminals, the World Expositions, and Spiritualism. His concept of the "cinema of attractions" relates the development of cinema to other forces than storytelling, such as new experiences of space and time in modernity, and an emerging modern visual culture. His book D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Cinema traces the ways film style interacted with new economic structures in the early American film industry and with new tasks of storytelling. His forthcoming book on Fritz Lang deals with the systematic nature of a director's oeuvre and the processes of interpretation. He has also written on avant-garde film, both in its European pre-World War I manifestations and the American avant-garde film up to the present day, and on the relation between cinema and technology. The historical factors of exhibition and criticism and spectators' experiences throughout film history are recurrent themes in his work.

TERRY HACKETT, ELEARNING DIVISION, DELOITTE CONSULTING

Terry Hackett works to develop compelling on-line educational software for businesses. He is a former Director of Educational Programs at Jellyvision, Inc. in Chicago. He designed an interactive CD-ROM series for elementary schools called That's a Fact, Jack! Read. The program immerses students in a game show environment and questions them on content from any one of 450 young adult literature titles. The game's interactive design, which uses thousands of sequenced audio files to simulate a human conversation, helped lay the groundwork for the popular entertainment trivia game show You Don't Know Jack. Terry has a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he studied technology in education.

MARJORIE HEINS, FREE EXPRESSION POLICY PROJECT, NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP

Marjorie Heins is the director of the Free Expression Policy Project at NCAC. She was a First Amendment litigator at the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991-98, where she directed the ACLU's Arts Censorship Project. She is the author of Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence and Youth (Hill & Wang, 2001) and Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars (New Press, 1993; 2nd edition 1998). She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1978, clerked for Justice Benjamin Kaplan on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, taught at Boston College Law School, directed the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office in 1990, and spent seven unforgettable years as a staff attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts. She is now addicted to life in New York City and, when not obsessing over censorship issues, is frequently found in a balcony box at the Metropolitan Opera.

J.C. HERZ, JOYSTICK NATION, INC.

J.C. Herz is the author of Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds (Little Brown 1997) and the CEO of Joystick Nation Inc., which applies the principles of game design to the development of networked applications in the business world. Prior to founding the company, she was a columnist at the New York Times, where she wrote a weekly essay on the art and science of interactive entertainment. J.C. sits on the National Research Council's Committee on Creativity and Information Technology, and advises a number of Internet start-up companies. She lives, works, and plays in Manhattan.

HENRY JENKINS, COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES, MIT

Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, has spent his career studying media and the way people incorporate it into their lives. He has published articles on a diverse range of topics relating to popular culture, including work on Star Trek, WWF Wrestling, Nintendo Games, and Dr. Seuss. He testified last year before the U.S. Senate during the hearings on media violence that followed the Littleton shootings and served as co-chair of Pop!Tech, the 1999 Camden Technology Conference. Jenkins has published six books and more than fifty essays on popular culture. His books include From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games (1999), The Children's Cultural Reader (1998), "What Made Pistachio Nuts": Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic (1993), Classical Hollywood Comedy (1994), Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (1992), and the forthcoming The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture. Jenkins holds a Ph.D. in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MA in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa.

GERARD JONES, AUTHOR AND CULTURAL CRITIC

Gerard Jones has been both a creator and an analyst of popular culture. He is the author of "What Itchy and Scratchy Know" in Harper's Magazine, "Violent Media Is Good for Kids" in Mother Jones (online), and other articles derived from his research for his forthcoming book, Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy Games, Superheroes, and Make Believe Violence (formerly publicized as Power Play). His earlier studies of media include "Honey I'm Home: Sitcoms Selling the American Dream" (Grove-Weidenfeld; St. Martin's), "The Beaver Papers" (Crown), and "The Comic Book Heroes" (Prima). Jones also founded the StoryScape storytelling workshops for children. He has served as keynote speaker at the Southern California Psychiatric Society's Conference on Aggression, and as an invited speaker at many events. As a former creator of comic books, Gerard contributed to Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, X-Men, The Justice League, Green Lantern, and many other popular icons. His own creations, including Ultraforce, Prime, The Trouble with Girls, The Haunted Man, and others, have been developed into animated TV series, comic books, Sony video games, Galoob toys, Web-toons, and two feature films in production. Gerard has worked with Nintendo and Shogakukan to adapt many Japanese comic book and cartoon properties to the English-speaking world, including Dragonball Z and Pokemon. Gerard co-founded one of the first online animation studios for the Web, Lemon Custard Comics, providing "edutainment" to clients from the National Trauma Society to the New York Athletic Club. He has written feature screenplays for Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Silver Pictures, and Savoy Films, teleplays for HBO and others, and for five years served as a contributing editor to the National Lampoon. His work has received commendations from the Parents' Council, GLAAD, and other groups. Gerard Jones lives in San Francisco, and works with the Parents Association and Board of Trustees of Live Oak School. He has an eight-year-old son, Nicky, who helps him in the most surprising ways to understand children and their culture.

YASMIN KAFAI, KIDS INTERACTIVE DESIGN STUDIOS, UCLA

Yasmin Kafai is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, where she also directs the UCLA K.I.D.S research project. She has written numerous articles on learning technologies and environments for young children in the fields of education, developmental psychology, computer and information studies. Her research on video games and learning has been published in the monograph Minds in Play: Computer Game Design as a Context for Children's Learning (Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, 1995). She co-edited with Mitchel Resnick Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking and Learning in a Digital World (Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, 1996). Her work on the design of learning cultures and technologies has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Spencer Foundation. More recently, she was part of the national commission which produced the report Tech-Savvy Girls: Educating Girls in the Computer Age (American Association of University Women, 2000), briefed the Telecommunication and Computer Science Board for the report titled Being Fluent with Information Technology (National Academy of Sciences, 1999), and helped define a national research agenda with Ensuring a Quality Media Culture for Children's in the Digital Age (Center for Media Education, 1998). Born in Germany, Yasmin Kafai undertook her studies on learning theories and technologies in France, Germany, and the United States. She received her doctorate from Harvard University in 1993 while working with Seymour Papert and Idit Harel at The Media Laboratory of MIT.

SETH KILLIAN, SHORYUKEN.COM

Seth Killian is a former national champion in the "Street Fighter" series of video games, one of the world's most popular video games. He played on the first ever U.S. National Team, competing at the world championships in Tokyo last year, and will be traveling to Paris for this year's event (last year's trip to Tokyo and the preliminary tournaments were the subject of a major new documentary film scheduled to debut at this year's Sundance film festival). He is the resident columnist on all things videogame on Shoryuken.com, a major commercial site (over 4.5 million hits per month) devoted to coverage of the thriving tournament scene. Through the website, they've organized several major international tournaments; the last had over 500 players from 40 states and 17 different countries (from Kuwait to Japan and everywhere in between). Seth is also a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study, finishing a PhD in philosophy at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

MARSHA KINDER, CINEMA-TELEVISION, USC

Marsha Kinder is a cultural theorist whose specialties include narrative theory, children's media, and Spanish cinema. She has published over 100 essays and 10 books, including Blood Cinema, Playing with Power in Movies, Television and Video Games, and Kids' Media Culture. Also multimedia producer, her interactive works include Blood Cinema (the first scholarly hypertext in film studies); Runaways, a CD-ROM game for teens co-authored with documentary filmmaker Mark Jonathan Harris; and three electronic fictions: The first, produced in collaboration with novelist John Rechy was the recipient of the NewMedia Invision 2000 Gold Award for Overall Design. The second and third, made with independent filmmakers Nina Menkes and Pat O'Neill will appear in the "Digital Salon" at the Sundance Film Festival. These fictions came out of the Labyrinth Project, a research initiative on interactive narrative at USC's Annenberg Center for Communication, which she has been directing since 1997. Kinder also chairs the Division of Critical Studies in the USC School of Cinema-Television, where she has been teaching since 1980 and where she was the 1995 recipient of the USC Associates Award for Creativity in Research. Since 1977 she has been a member of the editorial board and a frequent contributor to Film Quarterly, and she was the founding editor of Dreamworks (1980-88), an award-winning interdisciplinary quarterly on dreams and the arts.

DOUG LOWENSTEIN, INTERACTIVE DIGITAL SOFTWARE ASSOCIATION

Douglas Lowenstein became the first President of the Interactive Digital Software Association in June, 1994, building the IDSA into the most influential and important worldwide trade body representing the computer and video game software industry. Over the years IDSA has created many programs including a national ratings review board, the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3), a worldwide anti-piracy program and more. Mr. Lowenstein began his career in the Washington Bureau of the Capitol Hill News Service covering public policy issues in 1974. He went on to serve at Legislative Director for five years in the office of U.S. Senator, Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH). From there, Douglas Lowenstein pursued his interest in public policy consulting and strategic communications for National Strategies, Inc. and then Robinson Lake Sawyer Miller, Inc. respectively.

HOWARD MARGOLIS, IRVING B. HARRIS GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Howard Margolis is a professor in the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and the College. He has taught at the University of California-Irvine, and has held research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Margolis' major research interest is in social theory, particularly the underpinnings of individual choice and judgment, which shape aggregate social outcomes. The principal results of this work have been five books: Selfishness, Altruism & Rationality (Cambridge University Press, 1982; University of Chicago Press, 1984); Patterns, Thinking & Cognition (University of Chicago Press, 1987); "Paradigms and Barriers" (University of Chicago Press, 1993); and Dealing with Risk: Why the Public and the Experts Disagree on Environmental Issues (University of Chicago Press, 1996); and The Discovery of Discovery: What Was Revolutionary About the Scientific Revolution (McGraw-Hill, January 2002). Prior to his academic career, Margolis worked in Washington D.C., as a journalist, official, and consultant. He was the founder of the "News & Comment" section of Science, a correspondent for the Washington Post and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, speech-writer for the secretary of defense, and consultant to the National Academy of Sciences on studies of major public policy issues.

GAIL MARKELS, INTERACTIVE DIGITAL SOFTWARE ASSOCIATION (IDSA)

Gail Markels is Senior Vice President and General Counsel to the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), where she is responsible for managing all legal issues affecting the organization as well as state public policy issues. Prior to joining the IDSA at its formation in 1994, she was Vice President of State Government Affairs at the Motion Picture Association and Counsel to the film industry's rating system. Ms. Markels has also served as an Assistant District Attorney for Kings County in New York. She earned a J.D. degree from the Cardozo School of law and completed her undergraduate work at Cornell University.

JOE MCKAY, DIGITAL ARTIST

Joe McKay is an artist who makes work with and about digital culture. Joe has been living in New York City for the past seven years working as an artist and Macintosh computer consultant. He grew up in Ontario and went to school at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. This past year he participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Joe s work is currently in "The Electric Donut," a two person show with Kristin Lucas at Gallery 400 (400 Peoria St, Chicago), a show which also ran this past summer at the Media Z Lounge in New York.

FENG MENGBO, VIDEO GAME ARTIST, BEIJING

Feng Mengbo is a young Chinese artist whose work uses the styles and structures of contemporary electronic games. He combines this with cultural influences of China, from traditional opera legends to more recent stories from the Cultural Revolution and Hong Kong action cinema. Mengbo has worked in paint, video and more recently digital media, to produce narrative pieces, full of computer game images, mixed with symbols from communist China. Since 1996 Mengbo has worked with computers, not as a passive player, but making CD-Roms and games. The first CD-Rom piece by Mengbo was 'My Private Album' in 1996, which is an interactive family photo album. Following that he has made a series of interactive multimedia works using the structures of commercial software with Chinese themes such as "Game Over," "The Long March," and "The War of Resistance against Japan." His Q3 show will debut in the US at the Renaissance Society Gallery at the University of Chicago on January 13, 2002, and run until February 24.

STEPHAN MEYERS, MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT CONSULTANT

Stephan Meyers is a former Senior Research Scientist at Nokia Ventures Organization and "Content Guru" at the Media Garden. He has 17 invention reports and 11 patents pending in 1999 for wearable computing, and has contributed to many exhibitions of multimedia and new media art. He is the co-author, with Jussi Holopainen, of "Neuropsychology and Game Design" in Consciousness Reframed III (August 2000).

W. J. T. MITCHELL, ART HISTORY AND EDITOR, CRITICAL INQUIRY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

W. J. T. Mitchell is the Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago, and Editor of Critical Inquiry. His recent books include Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (1994) and The Last Dinosaur Book: the Life and Times of a Cultural Icon (1998).

COLM O'MUIRCHEARTAIGH, NORC AND PUBLIC POLIY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Colm A. O'Muircheartaigh is a professor in the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and vice president for Statistics and Methodology in the National Opinion Research Center. O'Muircheartaigh's research encompasses a range of methodological issues in survey and statistical work. He has served as a consultant to many public and commercial organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and elsewhere. Through his work with the United Nations (FAO, UNDP, UNESCO), OECD, the Commission of the European Communities, International Association for Educational Assessment (IEA), and others, O'Muircheartaigh has worked in China, Myan Mar (Burma), Kenya, Lesotho, and Peru. Among other current projects, he is developing an instrument for measuring aesthetic responses.

CELIA PEARCE, CLAIRE TREVOR SCHOOL OF ARTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE

Celia Pearce is an interactive multimedia designer, artist, researcher, teacher and author of The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution (Macmillan). She is currently a Lecturer at the Claire Trevor School of Arts at The University of California, Irvine. Previously, she was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Southern, where she produced several conferences and helped to design an MFA Program in the School of Cinema-Television. Ms. Pearce's creative projects include: Iwerks and Evans & Sutherland's award-winning Virtual Adventures: The Loch Ness Expedition, a 24-player virtual reality attraction; the lounge@siggraph and The Virtual Gallery, SIGGRAPH '95; and, Body of Light, which has been performed at L.A.'s Electronic Cafe and Canada's Banff Centre for the Arts.

ROBERT PIPPIN, RAYMOND W. AND MARTHA HILPERT GRUNER DISTINGUISHED SERVICE PROFESSOR, COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL THOUGHT AND DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Robert Pippin works and teaches principally in the German philosophy of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. He is the author of several books, including Modernism as a Philosophical Problem: On the Dissatisfactions of European High Culture (1991) and Henry James and Modern Moral Life (2000), and many articles on German Idealism, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Critical Theory, Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, Political Philosophy, and other topics.

ALAN POPE, LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER, NASA

Dr. Alan Pope is a behavioral researcher at NASA Langley and inventor of biofeedback technologies that aid people with Diabetes and children with Attention Deficit Disorder. His biofeedback treatment for ADD uses a modified version of current video game technology.

MARC PRENSKY, GAMES2TRAIN.COM

Marc Prensky is the founder, CEO and Chief Creative Officer ofgames2train.com, and Corporate Gameware LLC. He earned a BA from Oberlin College, and MBA from Harvard Business School (with distinction), and masters degrees from Middlebury and Yale. Before attending business school he taught math and reading in New York City's East Harlem neighborhood and spent several years as an actor and musician, performing on Broadway and at Lincoln Center. After earning his MBA, Marc spent six years at the Boston Consulting Group, where he was that firm's first product development director. He then joined a Boston-based software company, where he developed the first multimedia learning applications for Harvard Business School, JP Morgan, the Boston Consulting Group, and many other clients. At games2train.com, Marc has created advanced and engaging digital game-based learning technology for business training, bringing together learning theory and game technology in a new way that is now finding acceptance throughout American industry. Marc has created more than three dozen software games, including games2train.com products, business simulations, and trading games. Marc has been featured in articles in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Time Digital, and Newsweek, and has contributed to a number of business publications. He has appeared on CNBC, CNN/fn, and on the PBS show Computer Currents.

EUGENE PROVENZO, JR., DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. completed a master's degree in History at Washington University in 1974 and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of Education in the Philosophy and History of Education in 1976. While in graduate school, although focusing primarily on historical and philosophical training, he received extensive background in ethnography and field-based research, as well as archival preservation and exhibit work. His career as a researcher has been interdisciplinary in nature. Throughout his work, his primary focus has been on education as a social and cultural phenomenon. Since 1976, he has worked as a professor at the University of Miami. In 1985 he was awarded the rank of Full Professor. While continuing his duties as a professor, he served as the research coordinator and then as Associate Dean for Research for the School of Education (May 1986 to June 1988). In October 1991 he won the university-wide undergraduate teaching award at the University of Miami. He has pursued interests related to the impact of computers on contemporary children, education and culture. His research on computers and video games has been reviewed in the New York Times, The Guardian, Mother Jones and The London Economist. He has been interviewed in many major media outlets. In December of 1993 he testified before the United States Senate joint hearing of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice and the Government Affairs Subcommittee on Regulation and Government Information on the issue of violence in video games and television and in March of 2000 before the Senate Transportation and Commerce Committee on issues of children and interactive technology. He is the author of many books, including Video Kids: Making Sense of Nintendo (Harvard UP, 1991), and is working on a new book, Children and Hyperreality: The Loss of the Real in Contemporary Childhood and Adolescence.

KIMERLY RORSCHACH, THE DAVID AND ALFRED SMART MUSEUM OF ART AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Dr. Rorschach held curatorial positions at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the Philadelphia Museum of Art before becoming the Dana Feitler Director of the Smart in 1994. She is a specialist in 18th-century British art and has published many exhibition catalogues, articles, and reviews. She serves on the University of Chicago's Committee on the Visual Arts and the faculty steering committee of the Cultural Policy Center. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and a Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, where she teaches a course in art law.

ANDREW ROSENFIELD, UNEXT

Andrew M. Rosenfield, an economist and a lawyer, was educated at Kenyon College, Harvard University, The University of Chicago and The University of Chicago Law School. Mr. Rosenfield is Chairman and CEO of UNext, an internet education firm that he founded in 1998. UNext is bringing high-quality education to employed people throughout the world. Prior to forming UNext, Mr. Rosenfield was President and Chairman of Lexecon Inc., a firm that he co-founded in 1977 with Richard A. Posner (now the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit) and William M. Landes (The Clifton R. Musser Professor of Economics at The University of Chicago). Mr. Rosenfield also is active in the Chicago community and is a member of the Board of Trustees of The University of Chicago and of The University of Chicago Hospital System, a member of the Board of Directors of The Lyric Opera of Chicago and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago.

LAWRENCE ROTHFIELD, ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE, AND CULTURAL POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Lawrence Rothfield is Associate Professor of English and Faculty Director of the Cultural Policy Program at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Vital Signs: Medical Realism in Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1992) and editor of Unsettling Sensation: Arts Policy Lessons from the Brooklyn Museum of Art Controversy (Rutgers Press, 2001).

ELLEN SANDOR, ART(N) LAB

Ellen Sandor, an MFA graduate from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is the founding artist and director of (art)n. In 1983, in Chicago, she produced the first large scale, digitally immersive environment entitled PHSCologram '83. This compelling installation opened a dialogue in new media circles for what would later become known in the digital era as "Virtual Reality." Sandor's work sketched the potential for fine arts applications of virtual reality and opened doors for artists to collaborate with scientists, working with NASA, JPL, the Scripps Institute and others. (art)n's works have been commissioned by many museums, and private and corporate collections. Ms. Sandor's works are in the permanent collection of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, International Center of Photography NYC, The Smithsonian Institution, The US Art in Embassies Program and various private collections. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Art & Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has co-authored juried papers on (art)n's computer interleaving process, and has lectured by invitation in Europe, Canada and the United States. Her award winning web site was the first in 1993/94 to show on-line exhibitions and galleries that present art history with computer graphics in a salon environment. She is a co-inventor of PHSColograms and the primary inventor of computer interleaving and improvement patents.

J. MARK SCHUSTER, CULTURAL POLICY, MIT AND UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Mark Schuster is Professor of Urban Cultural Policy in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The University of Chicago Harris School’s 2001-2002 Visiting Professor of Cultural Policy, Schuster is a public policy analyst who specializes in the analysis of government policies and programs with respect to the arts, culture, and environmental design. He is the author of numerous books, articles, and reports including: Preserving the Built Heritage: Tools for Implementation, with John de Monchaux and Charles Riley (University Press of New England); Patrons Despite Themselves: Taxpayers and Arts Policy, with Michael O’Hare and Alan Feld (New York University Press); Supporting the Arts: An International Comparative Study (National Endowment for the Arts); Who's to Pay for the Arts? The International Search for Models of Arts Support, with Milton Cummings (American Council for the Arts); The Audience for American Art Museums, and The Geography of Participation in the Arts and Culture (Seven Locks Press). Schuster is a founding member of the Association for Cultural Economics and is co-editor of the Journal of Cultural Economics. He also serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Cultural Policy.

GEOFFREY STONE, PROVOST AND PROFESSOR OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Geoffrey Stone attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review, and was awarded his degree cum laude. Following graduation in 1971, Mr. Stone served as law clerk to Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He spent the next year as law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Stone was admitted to the New York Bar in 1972 and has been a member of the faculty since 1973. From 1987 to 1993, Mr. Stone served as dean of the Law School. Mr. Stone has served on the Board of Governors of the Chicago Council of Lawyers, on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union, Illinois Division, and as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is currently a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union and a member of the Board of Governors of Argonne National Laboratory. Mr. Stone has taught courses in constitutional law, civil procedure, evidence, criminal procedure, contracts, and regulation of the competitive process. Mr. Stone has written a casebook with Mr. Sunstein in the area of constitutional law. He has also written numerous articles concerning such matters as the freedom of speech and press, freedom of religion, the constitutionality of police use of secret agents and informants, the privilege against self-incrimination, the Supreme Court, and the FBI. Mr. Stone is the editor, with David Strauss and Dennis Hutchinson, of the Supreme Court Review.

CASS SUNSTEIN, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL

Cass Sunstein is Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence in the Law School and the Dept. of Political Science. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects including the marketing of video games, and he has been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of nations. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Sunstein has been Samuel Rubin Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia, visiting professor of law at Harvard, a member of the ABA Committee on the future of the FTC, and a member of the President's Advisory Committee on the Public Service Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters. He is author of many articles and a number of books, including republic.com (2001), Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech (1993), Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict (1996), and Free Markets and Social Justice (1997). He is now working on various projects involving the relationship between law and human behavior.

YURI TSIVIAN, CINEMA & MEDIA STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Yuri Tsivian is professor in the Departments of Art History, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the Committee on Cinema and Media Studies. He was born in Riga, studied film at the Institute for the History of Arts in Moscow and received his Ph.D. in film studies from Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema in Leningrad in 1984. Before joining the University of Chicago in 1996, Tsivian worked as a senior research fellow at the Latvian Academy of Sciences in Riga and has taught at USC. His books include Silent Witnesses: Russian Films, 1908-1919, and Early Cinema in Russia and Its Cultural Reception (Routledge 1994). Tsivian is also involved in the restoration and video mastering of silent films; see his running voice-over audio essay for the music version of Dziga Vertov's The Man with the Movie Camera recorded on a recent laser disk version of this film (Image Entertainment, 1995). His most recent publication is available in electronic form as a fully bilingual (English and Russian) CD ROM called Immaterial Bodies: Cultural Anatomy of Early Russian Films (due this year from the University of Southern California Electronic Press). Tsivian is now working on a book on Sergei Eisenstein's film Ivan the Terrible, and co-editing with Tom Gunning and Richard Abel a book to be called International Anthology of Early Film Literature (Princeton University Press).

HAMZA WALKER, THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY

Since 1994, Hamza Walker has served as Director of Education for The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago -- a non-collecting museum devoted to contemporary art. Prior to his position at the Society, he worked as a public art coordinator for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. He has written articles and reviews for such publications as Trans, New Art Examiner and Parkett and recently co-edited the Raymond Pettibon Reader. For several years before its closing, he served on the board of Randolph Street Gallery and is currently on the boards of Noon, an annual publication of short fiction, and Lampo, a non-profit presenter of new and experimental music. He has served on numerous panels, locally, nationally, and internationally and is the recipient of the 1999 Norton Curatorial Grant.

The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago is one of the country's premiere exhibition spaces devoted exclusively to contemporary art. Founded in 1915 as a non-collecting museum, it has maintained the same mission -- to promote developments in contemporary visual art trough exhibitions and related events (lectures, concerts, readings, performances, film and video screenings) designed to broaden the context for a given artist's work. Over the past few decades, The Society has developed a reputation for providing local, national and internationally recognized artists their first museum exhibitions, simultaneously bringing the world to Chicago and presenting Chicago to the world.

DAVID WALSH, NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON MEDIA AND THE FAMILY

David Walsh, Ph.D., founded the National Institute on Media and the Family in 1996. As President, Dr. Walsh spearheads the Institute's efforts to provide information about media to parents, teachers, and other concerned adults-through education, research, and advocacy. Psychologist, educator, family therapist, author, speaker, husband, and father of three, David Walsh is one of the leading authorities in North America on family life, parenting, and the impact of media on children. He is also a leading voice in addressing the issues of media's impact on brain development in children. Dr. Walsh is the spokesperson for the American Medical Association's media violence campaign, and a participant in the "Safe From the Start" summit hosted by the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services. He is the author of several books including, Selling Out America's Children: How America Puts Profits Before Values and What Parents Can Do (Fairview Press, 1994). Walsh is also a frequent guest on national programs such as "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," "Dateline NBC," and National Public Radio. His editorials have appeared in The Washington Post and The New York Times. Dr. Walsh is on the faculty of University of St. Thomas and the University of Minnesota and is active in many professional associations. Dr. Walsh is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1999 Minnesota Council on Family Relations' Friend of the Family Award, and the Harriet Burns Award for Professional Psychology presented by the University of St. Thomas to the outstanding Minnesota Psychologist in 1992. He is a member of the American Psychological Association and the Minnesota Psychological Association.

ERIC ZIMMERMAN, GAMELAB

Eric is co-founder and CEO of gameLab, a New York-based game developer. gameLab's first title, BLiX, is available on Shockwave.com. Pre-gameLab titles include the critically acclaimed SiSSYFiGHT 2000 (www.sissyfight.com, created with Word.com). Eric's non-computer game projects include the interactive paper book Life in the Garden; Organism, a board game published by ArtByte in 2000; and game installations for gallery and museum spaces. Eric has taught game design and interactive narrative design at MIT, New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, and Parsons School of Design. He has published and lectured extensively on the design and culture of play and games and is currently co-authoring a book with Katie Salen about game design to be published by MIT Press in 2002.


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