Mary Flanagan

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Mary Flanagan is an artist, author, educator, and designer currently residing in New York City. She is an associate professor in the Film and Media department at Hunter College and the director of the Tiltfactor Lab, an activist game design group. She graduated with a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, achieved MFA and MA degrees from the University of Iowa, as well as Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, UK. Her BA was focused on film and her PH.D was in Computational Media focusing on activist game design. [1]Her art has been exhibited around the world and she was featured in the videogame art documentary 8 BIT. Within the field of culture and technology, she is known for her theory of playculture.[2]

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[edit] Artwork

Dr. Flanagan's artwork deals primarily with technology and what its design and use reveal about society. Through sculpture, video game mods, and networked databases she investigates how human relationships manifest in and are influenced by the technological artifacts that permeate the modern world. Other work is concerned with cyber-feminism and the representation of women in cyberculture. A few of her earlier works include The Adventures of Josie True done from 1997 to 2002 in cooperation with her students, as well as The Rapunsel Project. Both are made specifically for young girls to play and to learn from. These projects focus on teaching and encouraging video game play of girls in our culture. [1] [domestic] is a hack of Unreal Tournament 2003 combining elements of digital narrative and video game play. [domestic] is a redirection of the video game done for an artistic purpose. Flanagan uses the games engine to create a home-like environment that conveys images that relate to some of her own childhood memories. [domestic] relates to a specific childhood memory that took place when she was seven growing-up in rural wisconsin. This project was an installation within a virtual environment and uses [Unreal Tournament 2003] as the space to showcase her work. [3] It was featured in the book New Media Art. Perhaps her most famous pieces are [phage][4] and [collection]. "[phage] functions by charting a computer hard drive‘s unique movements - through internet downloads, web sites visited, images and emails stored. The computer drives the artwork as a self-propelled artificial organism, filtering through all available material on the hard drive and morphing it into a floating-3D-computer world. In this way [phage] reflects not only the computer user’s technoculture, but also mementoes from his or her interactions."[5] [collection] is a similar program that networks and displays the contents of multiple computers. It has been shown in Sydney, Barcelona, and the 2002 Whitney Biennial.[6]

[edit] Writing

Most recently, Dr. Flanagan and Austin Booth co-edited re:skin a collection of fiction and theory addressing issues of technology, interface, and the body. Similitudini. Simboli. Simulacri (SIMilarities, Symbols, Simulacra), a book she co-authored with Matteo Bittanti, investigates the fan culture of The Sims. Finally, Reload: Rethinking Women and Cyberculture[7] was co-authored with Austin Booth. Dr. Flanagan has also contributed to a number of academic journals, anthologies, conference proceedings writing.

[edit] Tiltfactor

When Dr. Flanagan founded Tiltfactor, it was the only game research lab in New York City. Focusing on social activism and innovative software design, Tiltfactor has developed a number of games for underserved populations. The Adventures of Josie True is a web-based game designed to teach math and science to middle school girls. The Rapunsel Project is a game currently in development to teach computer programming to children. Tiltfactor's largest project is Values At Play, an investigation of how socially-responsible values can be consciously designed into video games. Members of the lab have also published papers on video game design and digital feminist art.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Mary Flanagan. Mary Flanagan. Retrieved on 2008-05-06.
  2. ^ :::::::::::::::: DocSMARTs: PhD in the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute :::::::::::::::
  3. ^ Mary Flanagan - Mark Tribe - Brown University Wiki
  4. ^ Virtual Exhibitors - Mary Flanagan
  5. ^ The Physics Room Annual 2002. The Physics Room (December 2003). Retrieved on 2007-08-13.
  6. ^ 2002 Biennial Artists. Whitney Museum of American Art (2002). Retrieved on 2007-08-13.
  7. ^ [1]

[edit] External links