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The Palimpsest project: producing a cultural shift to enable a systematic shift

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The Palimpsest project: producing a cultural shift to enable a systematic shift

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Content The Palimpsest Project Producing a Cultural Shift to Enable a Systematic Shift By Allison J. Comrie Master of Fine Arts Interactive Media & Games Division School of Cinematic Arts University of Southern California December 12, 2018 The Palimpsest Project 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................3 Introduction..................................................................................................................4 The Palimpsest Project: Conceptual Basis.........................................................6 VR: The New Frontier.............................................................................................11 Palimpsest VR: Methodology + Outcomes.......................................................12 Palimpsest Program: Methodology + Outcomes............................................16 Conclusion...................................................................................................................20 Work Cited...................................................................................................................21 References....................................................................................................................22 The Palimpsest Project 3 Acknowledgments First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisors for the continuous support of my studies and research, for your patience, motivation, enthusiasm, immense knowledge, and guidance in writing of this thesis. I could not have imagined better advisors and mentors for this topic. I would also like to specially thank my partner Atley Loughridge for her assistance, support, and collaboration on this project. Furthermore, I would like to thank the entire faculty in the IMGD Department for fostering my love for interactive media and helping me develop my abilities in the field. Last, but not least, I would like to thank my family and most importantly my mother for always believing in me and supporting me throughout my time at Scripps and my entire life. Thank you: Magalis Martinez + Marientina Gotsis Jeff Watson + Jane Pinckard Carl + Laird + Archie The Palimpsest Project 4 Introduction I have ben playing video games for as long as I can remember, yet I never considered myself to be a gamer- not because I was ever ashamed to define myself as such- I just wasn’t what a “gamer” looked like, to others, and even myself. In 2012, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reported that 47% of all game players are women. Yet the stereotype of the average gamer being a 16-35 year old man continues to persist throughout US society and media. In 2017, the ESA reported that adult women represent a greater portion of the video game population than boys age 18 or younger. Still women only represent about 22% of the people developing games. In 2013, I completed my undergrad thesis titled “The Plight of the Girl Gamer: Deconstructing the Stereotypes of Women in Gaming”, where my goal was to expose the prejudice nature underlying gaming communities and to merge these seemingly divided factions, using an academic basis to bring this issue to the online world. In my studies, I found that there was a direct correlation between how women in video games are portrayed and how they are treated in online video game communities. Since then, there has been a shift in the gaming industry- from GamerGate to Anita Sarkeesian- it is no longer a secret that the gaming industry is rampant with inequalities. As a result, I have made it my mission to hack video game culture. This conclusion led to the essential yet discernable realization that media and society are part of an ever entwining feedback loop, consistently informing one another, and that in order for the video game industry to produce more diverse content, we need more developers of different ideologies, backgrounds, experience, etc. to create characters that celebrate differences in who we really are as a society. For my graduate thesis, I wanted to continue my mission in deconstructing this issue. I also wanted to expand and deepen my role as an advocate for social change creativity, by developing a game of my own that The Palimpsest Project 5 personally speaks to femmes of color, in addition to developing a program that enables and inspires other femmes of color to develop interactive content that stems from their own experiences. Both of these facets combined, comprise of The Palimpsest Project. The Palimpsest Project 6 The Palimpsest Project: Conceptual Basis Palimpsest is a graphic novel, virtual reality game, and after school program dedicated to increasing the motivation in high school femmes to study computer science in college. Throughout all facets, Palimpsest is about transforming ones environment by embracing technology. Our central goals that span from the VR game all the way to the game design program are to: 1. Motivate high school femmes to study comp science in college. 2. Teach skills of resilience 3. Femmes of Color Specific 4. Future-facing (hopeful) 5. Validating, yet non-triggering, layered content. Palimpsest the VR game is a cultural centerpiece that connects the classroom with the industry. Players step into the role of Maine as she transforms her own oppressive nightmare into a dream. Using actions of defense and connectedness to restore her spirit, players embody the protagonist Maine as she self-actualizes her femme psyche in a hostile environment hovering between the technical and natural. Palimpsest the educational program is comprised of lessons and tutorials centered around teaching femmes computer science via game design. During 2-hr weekly workshops over eight weeks, we tailor our teaching methods to a class of 16 participants. Our curriculum is being developed using a community-based, participatory approach based on motivational theory (Ryan, R.M., Deci, E.I. (2000). Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being. American Psychologist January 2000, Vol. 55, No. 1, 68-78). Our curriculum is designed for high school femmes, but could be expanded to a larger age range. The Palimpsest Project 7 Our pilot program was comprised of 16 femmes at Augustus F. Hawkins High School’s Critical Design and Gaming School (C:/DAGS) from March – April 2017. It consisted of a set of programming and game design workshops that were tailored to the students. In addition, it exposed students to industry and professional opportunities by inviting guest lecturers to co-teach lessons and taking them on a tour of the School of Cinematic Arts. Our goal for the curriculum is to package it in a way that is accessible to other instructors online who want to implement a similar program in their classrooms or community centers. We want to eventually expand this program into other schools and collaborate with various VR companies to fund labs with VR headsets and VR-ready computers. The graphic novel is what bridges the VR game to the curriculum. Stripping away the afrofuturist aesthetic and allegories, Palimpsest is about a woman of color’s relationship with the tech world. As players literally embody an African American high school girl, some will be able to relate to her while others won’t. The graphic novel will serve as, not only the backstory of Maine, but will also put a face to the curriculum itself. We hope to produce a graphic novel, not only to expand the narrative of our world but also to guide students through programming tutorials. This is a purely future goal and was not developed as part of this thesis. Palimpsest is dedicated to a cultural shift. This singular focus has led the project down the unlikely path of marrying a VR game with high school curriculum. Having studied computer science in college and have personally witnessed the imbalance of the game industry as both a player and developer, I am personally motivated to diversify CS classrooms and the industry itself. The Palimpsest approach is multi pronged, as we were actively studying the impact and synergy between the game and curriculum. The game serves several functions: The Palimpsest Project 8 1. Appeals to our target student with a central character they can relate to. 2. Empowers the player to exercise their ability to use self-defense and self-care, as well as the ability to switch between these actions, in order to transform their reality and restore their inner self. 3. Frames our team (90% femme) as relatable role models for our target student. 4. Reuses game assets to thread a relatable narrative through the curriculum and graphic novel. 5. Invites students to remix our code and assets in programming tutorials, thereby earning our name, "Palimpsest." 6. Markets our cause to potential allies in the VR world, who may be able to offer our students resources such as paid internships. The game is the sugar and the curriculum, the medicine. We have based our programming and design lectures on graduate-level introductions to computer science and design to prepare the students for what they will face in higher education. The content is nothing new, but the approach is rooted in Ryan and Deci's three components of motivation: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Relatedness is defined as the need to feel belongingness and connectedness with others. Motivational theory suggests that relatedness is centrally important for internal motivation. We aim to integrate relatedness into our curriculum by making more than half of the exercises collaborative, open-ended explorations. Both the VR game and curriculum place femmes of color as the protagonist in an empowering story about harnessing technology to transform one's self and one's environment. Where players physically punch and reach to defend themselves and access resources, our students practice mindfulness and interpersonal effectiveness. Where players manipulate creatures inspired by transistors and capacitors to achieve their goals, our students code C# in Unity to express their worldview. Our students inspire the game, and the game's remixed assets and code support the curriculum. We actively study the impact The Palimpsest Project 9 and synergy between the game and curriculum to produce a cultural shift towards femmes of color in computing. Our multi-pronged approach is designed to knit the systems of education and industry together. Originally, a "palimpsest" was a tablet or parchment that had been reused so that the reader could discern layers of rewriting. A palimpsest is an object or place that reflects its own history. Over the next five years, we hope for our work to be replaced by our students' work. Palimpsest also describes transformation of self in the sense that the past is not forgotten, but repurposed and reframed to suit present and future selves. Palimpsest embodies our hope that this project will be remixed and rewritten by our target audience. It's about the back and forth, about the iteration, about the relationship between the audience and the designers. We hope there will be a Palimpsest 00, 01, and hundreds of remixes by and for femmes of color. Our hypothesis is that femmes will study computer science if the culture signals belonging to them. Realizing that our initial interest in VR would most likely reach developers and industry personnel with access to headsets, and that femmes of color were in the minority in these spaces, we opted to focus on two target audiences: femmes of color with an interest in computing and industry personnel (see Figure 1, 2). We hope that this work will live on to be a common cultural reference amongst our students and the industry professionals reviewing their portfolios for paid internships and positions on engineering and design teams. The Palimpsest Project 10 Fig. 1 Cultural Elements, Palimpsest Audience Fig. 2 Target Audience, Primary vs. Secondary Audience The Palimpsest Project 11 VR: The New Frontier We believe the most interesting area for VR is in public spaces like schools and libraries for the purpose of visualizing concepts that are difficult to see in real life. Palimpsest the VR game is a centerpiece to spark dialogue about the layers of communication surrounding one's relationship with technology. While the game itself is not teaching hard science, it forces the perspective of technological development being a human- centric study -- a point of view that is missing from many CS classrooms and a possible cause for the loss of femmes to more explicitly human-centric stem fields like biology and chemistry (Cheryan, S., Ziegler, S.A., Montoya, A.K., Jiang, L. (2016). Why Are Some STEM Fields More Gender Balanced Than Others? Psychological Bulletin 2017, Vol. 143, No. 1, 1– 35). Cheryan, Ziegler, Montoya, and Jiang point out that the stereotype of a computer scientist being masculine is a strong dissuading signifier for femmes who may otherwise enjoy the field. While VR has been around for several decades, it has only been in the public eye for a few years. The emerging technology of VR should be used in public spaces for the purpose of visualizing the invisible. VR can also be used as a tipping point for a cultural shift, such as femmes in computer science. The motivation for creating a VR game was to not only expose young femmes to the ever growing industry of mixed reality, but also to collaborate with VR companies to build makerspaces in local schools, libraries, museums and community centers. In the interim, before we can accomplish this task, we plan on collaborating with these institutions to bring our own equipment into those spaces to not only show the game but also to expose community members to the infinite possibilities in mixed reality. This is just one step in the cultural shift that I hope to initiate through Palimpsest. The Palimpsest Project 12 Palimpsest VR: Methodology + Outcomes Self-actualize your femme psyche by transforming your environment. In Palimpsest, players use physical actions of self-defense and self-care to occupy and transform their environment and disarm the nebulous hostile force behind it. We want players to viscerally bring a technosphere to life as an extension of the player's environment, home, and sense of self, ultimately asserting that controlling technology is one way for us to design our future. As Creative Director of Palimpsest, I had a main hand in the narrative, visual, and audio design of the game. I worked closely with Atley Loughridge, the Technical Director, to design the gameplay and overall flow of the game. During the last 8 months, Palimpsest VR has gone through several changes as we navigated towards our experience goals. Palimpsest VR is still a work in progress and this paper focuses on the beta version that is completed. Palimpsest VR aims to innovate the music VR experiences by: • Rhythm action game that uses physical actions of self-defense and self-care to tell a story about self-actualization through technology. • Connecting the visual and audio aesthetic of each level on a cognitive and personal level of the main character • Explore the fusion of the player character in a VR space Narratively, I wanted to use the Hero(ines)’s journey as a framework to tell an afrofuturist story about technologization, self-empowerment, and liberation. Afrofuturism is literary and cultural aesthetic that combines elements of science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy with afrocentricity, not only to discuss present day dilemmas of people of color, but also to revise, interrogate and re-examine the historical events of the past in order to envision a future. In Palimpsest, the relationship of the antagonist and player embodies the tension between reliving trauma of the past in order to coax the next generation down a The Palimpsest Project 13 more empowered future. Using Afrofuturism as a framework, Palimpsest aims to assert that having the power to control technology is one way for players to design their own future. Visually, I wanted to explore ways audio and visual components could be used congruently to tell a story with no words by connecting different sounds and colors through unifying compositions that reflect the character’s emotional state and their place within the heroine’s journey. I wanted to do this solely through visual and environmental storytelling as opposed to dialogue. It was also important to me that the player feel connected with Main and one of the ways we were going to enable this was by allowing the player to puppet her and by giving them the time and space to explore Main’s personal space in order to get her backstory which could heighten the connection between the player and the character. From the beginning we knew we want to game to send the message that by embracing technology we can transform or envision our own future. Combining our passion for music driven mechanics we also wanted the interaction to be embodied. To literally place players into a body they are unfamiliar with and have them puppet a full body character through actions of self-defense and self-care. Ultimately, we wanted to do this through a relatable character who empowers herself through embracing technology. A lot went into the concept of Main, in terms of what she looks like and how she connects to the player. Because the player would be puppeting Main in room scale VR, I wanted to incorporate elements of what the player is wearing for VR, in her character design. To connect the head mount display, we designed her tech goggles to make it feel more natural to have something strapped to your head. Because the player would be holding controllers, we were immediately drawn to the idea of Main using these tech power gloves to transform her environment. The Palimpsest Project 14 As we were both passionate about the intersection between the organic and the technical, Her design shares both elements of cybertech and nature’s mycelium. In terms of our outfit, color palette and all, a lot of it was African inspired. More specifically, her design combined aspects of traditional African imagery [specifically Yoruba culture] with cyberpunk aesthetics. Narrative Development: Phase I When beginning to develop the narrative, it was also important to me that the player feel connected with MAIN and one of the ways we were going to force this was through allowing the player to puppet main and by giving them the time and space to explore Main’s space in order to get her backstory which could heighten the connection between the player and the character. We had a lot of backstory that we wanted the player to know at first. We thought that the more the player knows about Main leading up to the point where the story begins, the more connected the player would feel to the story. During phase 1 of the narrative development, we focused on delineating a complicated and hard to understand relationship between Main and her mother to the player through objects that are examined and read by the player. As a result, players didn’t know what was important, and there was too much content and not enough time with the content. From this, I learned that transitions are sometime more important than the level itself and that we needed to meet players halfway as opposed to forcing them to meet us. Narrative Development: Phase II During phase 2 we attempted to simplify the narrative further by reshaping the mother-daughter relationship to an older sister- young sister relationship. Shifting to a sisterhood centric narrative allowed us to lean on prior assumptions the player would have about sisters and how they interact. The mother-daughter relationship was more like a sister The Palimpsest Project 15 bond with Main having to take the charge in their relationship so, this shift lessened the need to explain a lot of the backstory. Even with the simplified narrative, we realized we were making two different games. On one side there was the Gone Home like mechanic of narrative through exploration and on the other side we were making Audio Surf through rhythm action mechanics. While this wasn’t a bad idea, it was purely out of scope for what we needed to accomplish and didn’t consider the limitation of our selected medium- virtual reality. Narrative Development: Phase III The story we wanted to tell could not, and should not be told in a 7 min VR game but that was a gift, not a curse because ultimately we were making a game. With games players will gladly start the call to action without any context because they are knowledgeable about their agency. And that’s the key difference between film and interactive media that we lost sight of. Cinematic storytelling done correctly leaves very little room for interpretation. Directors and writers develop a narrative that the viewer has very little part of. While the VR medium takes aspects from film and tradition video games, this cross section allows us to flow between the two mediums. I decided to rely solely on environmental storytelling and allow the player to interpret what they are experiencing. Aspects like color, tone, movement were just a few ways we guide the player as they go through the narrative, but for the most part, we had to let go of the narrative and trust in our design abilities to tell a complex, yet minimal narrative. Slowly, Main was no longer a fictional character with a complex backstory. Main became our target audience – the femmes of color we were making this for, the next generation of potential game designers, artists, and programmer. They were our The Palimpsest Project 16 Main. They were the heroines of their own narrative, with complex backstories and all. We realized we had our main character all along, and that was the player. Palimpsest Program: Methodology + Outcomes We began with the common sentiment that thriving as a femme in technology required the skills of reaching out for support and defending oneself from oppressive forces. In real life, everyone is simultaneously participating to some degree in supportive and oppressive forces. To thrive as a femme in technology, one must be able to switch between connective and defensive actions. We did not want to make claims or attempt to teach physical self-defense. Rather, we wanted to focus on mechanics that would require the player switch between defending themselves or reaching out for help within our particular game space. We wanted the player to be able to interpret how these actions could be applied to their lives, and to simply rehearse our representations of the actions within our game. The VR game embodies our core assertion: femmes can transform their reality via technology. In this case, "technology" can be seen on the level of the player's VR controllers, or within game in the tech inspirations for the creatures the player encounters during the game. In the VR experience the tech gloves represent the tools used to shape our environment through technology. Through the educational program, we are providing students real life tools in order to shape their environment using technology. The Palimpsest Program is an after school program dedicated to increasing the motivation in high school femmes to study computer science in college. We designed an twelve-week pilot study to develop the Palimpsest Program curriculum. After curriculum development, we intend to apply to the IRB with a plan to research the efficacy of said The Palimpsest Project 17 curriculum. The ultimate goal of Palimpsest is to contribute towards a cultural shift towards femme culture in the field of Computer Science. Because many computer science courses at the high school level give the student the freedom to opt-out, cultural stereotypes can play a greater role in shaping that student body. By tailoring an optional curriculum to femmes, we seek to intervene with the trend of femmes opting out of early experiences with computer science. Our design philosophies were as follows: • A community-based, participatory approach • Based on psychological theory of motivation • Resilience skill-building activities, e.g. mindfulness • Lecture visuals/metaphors/objects that disrupt current computer science stereotypes • Representation of femmes in a relatable way amongst the teachers and visiting lecturers As our ultimate goal is a cultural shift, our study population consisted of those who identify with femme culture. "Femme" is an alternative to gender binary terms of "woman" or "female." "Femme" explicitly includes women, trans, non-binary persons, as well as anyone who identifies as, "femme". In the future, we intend to develop methods to safely recruit students who self-identify as "femme." From the mid-2000's to now, about 20% of computer science bachelor's degrees in the United States are awarded to women (National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Integrated Science and Engineering Resources Data System (WebCASPAR), https://webcaspar .nsf.gov). One reason for this is that men are disproportionately exposed to learning experiences with computer science before college. Such experiences are often opt-in based on the student's preference, student's opt-in based The Palimpsest Project 18 on their sense of belonging to the culture signaled to them by the learning experience, and the culture signaled by computer science learning experiences is often stereotypically masculine (Cheryan, S., Ziegler, S.A., Montoya, A.K., Jiang, L. (2016). Why Are Some STEM Fields More Gender Balanced Than Others? Psychological Bulletin 2017, Vol. 143, No. 1, 1– 35). Our justification for excluding males from this pilot study was to clearly signal to femmes that they belong to the culture of our pilot study. Pilot Study The objective of the pilot study was to develop curriculum to later test for its efficacy in motivating femmes to study computer science in college. Our current research question is, "Which education strategies are most worth testing?" We will evaluate the student's enjoyment of the education strategies and the ease with which another teacher at another school could employ these strategies. We hypothesized that the following teaching strategies may be worth testing: 1. Teaching approaches based on psychological theory of motivation (Ryan, R.M., Deci, E.I. (2000). Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being. American Psychologist January 2000, Vol. 55, No. 1, 68-78) 2. Resilience skill-building activities, e.g. mindfulness 3. Lecture visuals/metaphors/objects that disrupt current computer science stereotypes 4. Representation of femmes in a relatable way amongst the teachers and visiting lecturers (e.g. represented femmes in computer science provide an explanation for how they went from being a high school student to being a practitioner) The Palimpsest Project 19 Ryan and Deci describe three components of motivation: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Our goal was to provide autonomy for students to influence aspects of the content, pace, and direction of the curriculum by integrating their verbal feedback in real time as we taught. For the second part of the program, students worked on a self-directed project of their own design. There was no formal evaluation of competence (e.g. written exams). Rather, within the context of programming within a game engine, students visually observed the results of their growing computer science skill set. Relatedness is defined as the need to feel belongingness and connectedness with others. Motivational theory suggests that relatedness is centrally important for internal motivation. We aimed to integrate relatedness into our curriculum by making more than half of the exercises collaborative, open-ended explorations. By de-emphasizing pre-defined, "correct" outcomes, we aimed to place a premium on relational bonds formed with peers. Cheryan, Ziegler, Montoya, and Jiang point to the value of relatable role models over role models who only match the student's gender. Letting the students explore prompts and self-defined projects is that we the instructors will, at times, not know how to solve bugs that arise in their programs. One strategy with which we aim to make ourselves relatable to the students is be honest about the limits of our knowledge, and to share in leaning on the same design and bug-solving tools that they do in order to problem solve. Another version of this strategy is to be honest about our limits in understanding what learning strategies are working for the students, and to make space for them to vocalize in class how they would prefer to learn. The Palimpsest Project 20 Conclusion For our thesis, we could have just created a game or just the curriculum. But the truth is that we are focused on a cultural shift, and we have neither the tools to test our methods nor a suitable industry to receive our work as it is - unfinished, asymmetrical, disjointed, and exhaustive, with fleeting moments of congruence. Whether we consume or develop, code or collaborate, we all participate in a culture of computing that is a little broken. Rather than forcing a cohesive experience of hermetically sealed transmedia storytelling in which the player is transported to another reality, we have accepted that we all suffer the effects of homogeneity in computing. Palimpsest seeks to reach our audience where they are. Accepting that the culture of computing is a little broken is the first step towards validating each other’s experiences, communicating, and understanding. The Palimpsest Project 21 Work Cited Butler, Judith. Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. Routledge, 1997. Butler, Judith. Gender trouble. routledge, 1999. Corneliussen, Hilde G., and Jill Walker Rettberg, eds. Digital culture, play, and identity: A World of Warcraft reader. MIT Press, 2008. Gregersen, Andreas, and Torben Grodal. "Embodiment and interface." The video game theory reader 2 (2009): 65-85. Lehdonvirta, Vili. "Virtual worlds don't exist: Questioning the dichotomous approach in MMO studies." Game Studies 10.1 (2010). MacCallum-Stewart, Esther. "Real boys carry girly epics: Normalising gender bending in online games." Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture 2.1 (2008): 27-40. Penley, Constance, and Andrew Ross. Technoculture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991. Ryan, R.M., Deci, E.I. (2000). Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being. American Psychologist January 2000, Vol. 55, No. 1, 68-78 Sarkeesian, Anita, dir. Damsel in Distress- Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: Part 1. YouTube (Feminist Frequency) , 2013. Web. 10 Dec 2013. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q >. Sarkeesian, Anita, dir. Damsel in Distress- Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: Part 2. YouTube (Feminist Frequency) , 2013. Web. 10 Dec 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs>. Sofoulis, Zoe. "Cyberquake: Haraway’s manifesto." Prefiguring cyberculture: An intellectual history (2002): 84-103. Statistical Information from: https://www.quantcast.com/p-19UtqE8ngoZbM Stone, Allucquere Roseanne. "Virtual systems." Incorporations. New York: Zone Books (1992): 609-21. Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society. Chatto & Windus London, 1958. Print. The Palimpsest Project 22 References Feminist Theory Beavis, Catherine, and Claire Charles. "Would the ‘real’girl gamer please stand up? Gender, LAN cafés and the reformulation of the ‘girl’gamer." Gender and education 19.6 (2007): 691- 705. This text is probably the most explicitly close to my senior project as it considers the significance in online spaces that comment on notions of gendered gamers. The authors explore the identity of 'girl gamers' and the stereotypes given to them by other gamers and (as a ripple effect) society. Using engagement with online technologies (gaming or other) the authors illustrate the "politics of performative resignification, and conceptualize digital culture as a resource through which ‘girl’ gamers are mobilized and potentially reformulated". Using this, they critique the contradictory identities of females in a male dominated gaming world. Haraway, Donna. "A cyborg manifesto." The Cultural Studies Reader 2 (2009). Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto is known widely for being the first feminist text that dealt with women in an ever-changing technical, scientific, and social environment. Written in 1985, Haraway proposes a framework in which to look at cyberfeminism before the term cyberfeminism was even coined. She emphasizes the need to look at fractured identities as individuals and as whole, which links back to the format in which my senior project is centered. Sandoval, Chela. "NEW SCIENCES Cyborg feminism and the methodology of the oppressed." The cybercultures reader (2000): 374. Sandoval aims to illustrate the ideas presented in Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto and comments on how the cyborg stand for an oppositional consciousness that characterizes the problems various marginalized groups face in the 21st century. Using this as a feminist theory text, I will use Sandoval's essay as a basis in which to look at my own senior project, which focuses on this new 21st century cyborg within gaming. Game Theory Bartle, Richard. "Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: Players who suit MUDs."Journal of MUD research 1.1 (1996): 19. Bartle identifies four approaches to describe the inter-relationship of gaming styles; action vs. interaction and world-oriented vs. player oriented. This essay proposes a model in which to categorize players of MUDs or Multi-User Dimension. His categories of the 'achiever', 'explorer', 'socializer' and 'killer' gamer classes gives insight to not only how these classes interact but how that effects the positive or negative effects of game interactions between players. Along with this, I want my project to reflect a lot of 'game-like' elements and Bartle analysis has given me insight in how I can set up an exploratory interactive, player driven 'game'. The Palimpsest Project 23 Hitchens, Michael. "A Survey of First-person Shooters and their Avatars."Game Studies 11.3 (2011). Although Hitchens focuses his study solely on first-person shoots games (FPSs), he provides an extensive framework in which to look at statistics of female and male gamers. Hitchens provides countless graphs and charts from a study he personally conducted that explored the differences between the avatars allotted in over 500 FPSs and the people who play them as a result. Even though they can stand alone, the majority of FPS games function through an online, interactive capacity that perpetuates user interaction. His study provides context for a lot of what my project aims to comment on. Cyber-Culture Theory Lehdonvirta, Vili. "Virtual worlds don't exist: Questioning the dichotomous approach in MMO studies." Game Studies 10.1 (2010). Lehdonvirta proposes that massively multiplayer online games and virtual environments (MMOs) are based on a dichotomous real world vs. virtual word model. She explores the numerous dimensions of online gaming networks through space, identity, and social relationships. Because this is more specific to my actual thesis, I will be using Lehdonvirta's paper as a basis to create my own model- one that focuses on the space, identity and social relationships of female gamers. Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, ethnicity, and identity on the Internet. Taylor & Francis, Inc., 2002. In her essay titled "It's a Nigger in Here! Kill the Nigger!": User-Generated Media Campaigns Against Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in Digital Games, Nakamura explores the prejudice nature of online video game environments, where discrimination comes from other players as opposed to game-related content. Here she also discusses user-generated websites that aim to challenge the prejudice discourse of video game dialogues. Not only did this essay provide me with critical theory on my exact subject, but it also served as a resource for me to find other websites that also aim to do similar things connected to the sexist environments in gaming. Scholder, Amy, Jordan Crandall, and John S. Johnson. "Interaction: Artistic practice in the network." (2001). Interaction: Artistic Practice in the Network illustrates the relationships between artists and activism and the new kinds of action that the Internet enables between various groups of people. The essays and art pieces presented in the book focus on relationships between bodies, information systems, and urban realities. I will use this book and the essays in it to critically study the dynamics of communities surrounding the internet in a broader sense. In the introduction Crandall poses a question about identity and power and I would like to apply his ideas to a gaming world environment.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Palimpsest is a graphic novel, virtual reality game, and after-school program dedicated to increasing the motivation in high school femmes to study computer science in college. Throughout all facets, Palimpsest is about transforming one's environment by embracing technology. Our central goals that span from the VR game all the way to the game design program are to: ❧ 1. Motivate high school femmes to study comp science in college. ❧ 2. Teach skills of resilience ❧ 3. Femmes of Color Specific ❧ 4. Future-facing (hopeful) ❧ 5. Validating, yet non-triggering, layered content. ❧ Palimpsest the VR game is a cultural centerpiece that connects the classroom with the industry. Players step into the role of Maine as she transforms her own oppressive nightmare into a dream. Using actions of defense and connectedness to restore her spirit, players embody the protagonist Maine as she self-actualizes her femme psyche in a hostile environment hovering between the technical and natural.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Comrie, Allison Jane (author)

Core Title The Palimpsest project: producing a cultural shift to enable a systematic shift

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 12/13/2018

Defense Date 12/12/2018

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Afrofuturism,Education,game design,immersive media,Interactive Media,OAI-PMH Harvest,virtual reality,VR

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Gotsis, Marientina (committee chair), Lemarchand, Richard (committee member), Watson, Jeff (committee member), Wixon, Dennis (committee member)

Creator Email acomrie@usc.edu,allisoncomrie12@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-114240

Unique identifier UC11675779

Identifier etd-ComrieAlli-7019.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-114240 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ComrieAlli-7019-0.pdf

Dmrecord 114240

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Comrie, Allison Jane

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA