Posts tagged with "Games"
Photos from My Family's Visit to Ithaca Last Weekend
By Shira | Sep 9, 09 11:27 AM
My parents Hana and Dov, my brother Amit and his wife Sharon, and their kids Eli and Natan all came up from Maryland to Ithaca for the weekend. They couldn't sleep at our place because Eli is allergic to cats, but their hotel was really close to The Commons and we managed to pack in a lot of antics - The Cayuga Nature Center, The Johnson Museum of Art and the Suspension Bridge up at Cornell, Cascadilla Gorge, The Farmers' Market, a 2-hour cruise on The Cayuga Lake Floating Classroom and The Science Center. We also took my parents see the land we might buy near The Dacha. Thank you, Ithaca!
More: Art and Design | Education | Family | Film and Video | Food | Games | Photography | What we're up to
Photos from freeDimensional's Emerging Art Spaces Retreat on Wasan Island
By Shira | Jul 11, 09 12:55 PM
Ari and I went to Wasan Island in the Muskoka Lake region of Canada to help facilitate and document a retreat for people working in emerging art spaces around the world. Organized by the nonprofit network freeDimensional and supported by Breuninger Stiftung Foundation, the week-long convergence provided an opportunity to connect, relax and delve into the interconnections between art, freedom of expression and human rights.
Despite my role as documenter - I was taking photos and shooting video for a large part of the time - I was still able to connect deeply with the group and with the island. It's a beautiful place that allows people from very different geographies to find common ground.
Check out the photos and stay tuned for video...
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Simulated stupidity
By Ari | Feb 3, 08 02:05 PM
Recently I saw a big ad for EA's "Sim City Societies" that shows three (fake) people and the societies they've built, one of which is obviously meant to be an earthy crunchy green city and another that's insanely capitalist. Curious what options the game would actually give you (can you make a sustainable anarchist community, for example?), I checked out their site.
The game does seem flexible, poking fun at both capitalists and utopians and hinting at the idea of creating a balance. ("Mix and match societal values — productivity, prosperity, creativity, spirituality, authority, and knowledge — to determine the core attributes of your city... Witness the evolution of your city as its appearance and sounds adapt to reflect these values.") But right up at the top of the home page is a prominent "Learn more about alternative energy" link that leads to a BP-branded site explaining that this game is the result of a partnership between the oil company and EA.
While I appreciate that BP is apparently doing a lot of work in green energy development, and that this game will allow users to experiment with wind farms and other green technologies, this looks like a massive greenwashing campaign to me. BP paints itself here as a green energy company, with nary a whisper of its record as one of the ten worst corporations in the world.
With BP so intimately involved in this game's development, my guess is that folks who want to set up oil-guzzling societies will be conveniently prevented from causing the oil spills and oil refinery explosions that characterize oil's real-world impact... which sort of negates the whole point of a game that supposedly serves as a mini experimental laboratory for various energy options, doesn't it?
Related: Games for Change: Serious Fun
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