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Rethinking Economy-Building Video Games: How might designers inspire new economic models through video game mechanics?
Get PDFThis study investigates how economic ideas are manifested in the gameplay mechanics of economy-building, strategy, and management video games (in the vein of SimCity). The study investigates the possibility of influencing paradigmatic thinking of wellbeing, growth, and circularity (among others) through the economic models of games and their procedural rhetoric. It explores the assumptions, biases, and ideologies that this subgenre of games expresses as well as the influence this has on players, and future possibilities for integrating pluralist economics, including ecological economics, into gameplay mechanics. This exploration was achieved through eighteen interviews with game designers as well as players with experience in economics. The final synthesis of this study is a prototype toolkit to facilitate game designers’ systematic evaluation of some of the assumptions behind their work in support of efforts to create engaging and entertaining economy-building video games based on some key ecological economics and other new economics themes
UNDERSTANDING CREATIVE CANADA: CULTURAL POLICY, PUBLIC SENTIMENT, AND DIGITAL TAX REFORMS
Get PDFIn recent years, Canada legislated the most significant amendments to cultural policy in over a generation aimed at addressing a policy drift amid digital disruption. With wide criticism for these reforms, they are assumed have garnered negative reception in absence a digital tax; however, the legal intricacies of often inconsistent, and overlapping digital tax measures advocated for in Canada remain largely unexamined.
Against this background, the OECD/G20 are anticipated to implement the most fundamental overhauling of the international tax system in over a century, with a focus on addressing the tax challenges arising from the digitalisation of the economy. Recognizing that for a solution to be delivered in the coming year, there will need to be a consensus reached by OECD/G20 member countries by July 2021, this study considers the contingency of effective reforms, and alternative measures under consideration by the Government of Canada.
Evidence suggests that a solution to today’s digital tax challenges is perhaps a caveat for addressing the issues of Canada’s cultural policy that center upon its failure to keep pace with the digital creative economy. Observations consider the bearing equitable taxation has on the Canadian government’s general tax revenues necessary to fund direct spending programs. In order to link industry-specific government spending with industry-specific behaviour, underlying ties between new Canadian media and digital taxation are investigated, so as to examine opportunities for sustainable cultural policy and funding in the Canadian context
Creative Artificial Intelligence within the Artificial Life Installation “Infranet”
Get PDFThe authors explore how current mainstream data-driven AI approaches can be questioned critically from a perspective of computational creativity and ecosystemic art. This centres on a critique of the future as being over-determined by the past; both from the data used, and in the questions or objectives assumed by training. The main contributions of this paper are to apply alternative creative approaches to nature-inspired artificial intelligence, and to detail some of these through their embodiment in the authors’ artwork “Infranet”. Infranet is a neuro-evolutionary art installation that exhibited at three international locations over 2018-2019. It uses geospatial data of the host city not as a training material but as a habitat for artificial life. In contrast to training-based AI systems, in Infranet there is no objective or fitness function and very little evolutionary pressure or competition. Moreover, it eschews the trend of a large and pre-specified neural network structure in favour of a population of thousands of small interacting neural networks, each with distinct structure, in a "liquid" process of continuous reorganization; resonating with some contemporary theories and models of non-conscious cognition in biological and ecological systems
Co-designing a gamified learning tool to explore the effectiveness of social prescribing among healthcare providers
Get PDFBackground: Healthcare is a complex systemic response that addresses the acute health issues of individuals and prevents the downstream consequences of illnesses. With costs and demands on this system rising, social prescribing has emerged a viable and asset-based upstream intervention that decreases social isolation and repeat visits to primary care. The uptake of social prescribing in Canada is slow and requires a creative engagement strategy amongst healthcare workforces. A participatory process was explored to engage healthcare providers iteratively to co-design a gamified learning tool on social prescribing.
Methods: Working with social prescribing champions in Ontario, the project team developed an exploratory gameboard design that highlighted the impact of social prescribing on communities. Informed by several co-design workshops involving the principal team, systemic design mapping tools were utilized; iterative inquiry, journey mapping, rich context, actors map, transition by design and three horizons. Patient stories and case studies from local and regional health institutions aided in the development of game personas. The next phase of the project will involve the board piloted in various settings in with objective knowledge assessment and subjective feedback questionnaires being administered.
Analysis: Initial analysis of case studies and client journeys developed personas that reflect the needs of members of equity owed groups; racialized folks, substance users, gender nonbinary folks and those living with chronic diseases. Gaming artefacts were developed through team dialogue and weekly brainstorming exercises where the following needs emerged: language that was person centered, combined probabilities (using nonconventional dice, a spinner and gaming personas), and narratives of lived experiences. Data on participant learning, and user experience feedback will emerge with the next phase of the project. Initial findings included the need for representation of seniors and older adults.
Conclusions: Peer-based learning on social determinants and social prescribing have been demonstrated during pilot games. Next phase will establish practicality for the tool’s integration in medical educational and multidisciplinary learning. Increased social prescribing maybe achieved through game play that is participatory like this.
Keywords: Social Prescribing, Medical Education, Gamification, Senior
Why is it so hard to think about the future? An autoethnographic exploration of future thinking and the future self
Get PDFA recent survey revealed that most people do not think about the far future. Most respondents rarely or never thought 30 years into the future, and about 27% rarely or never think even five years ahead (Institute for the Future, 2017). This has major impacts for society, especially with regards to long-term issues such as climate change. This project explores the barriers to thinking about the future with the aim of investigating how more people might be enabled to participate in future-thinking activities in ways that are both empowering and appropriate to them. Furthermore, an autoethnography-guided literature review explores how people might foster stronger relationships with their future selves such that they (and society) can better act in the present towards beneficial long-term goals.
The project work culminates in the proposal of five recommendations for those interested in future thinking. The hope is that these will inspire both those who are beginning a personal future thinking practice and foresight practitioners attempting to understand the challenges people face when they are asked to think about the far future
Marks of Obsession: Appearance, Transformation, Pain, and the Abject Female Body
Get PDFUsing a conceptual framework, this creative research explores women’s bodies as they transform. The body of work that emerged through creative practice engages in existing discourse on body image and the dissemination of ideal images by the Western fashion system. Through a series of artistic processes that transform images to the point of dissolution, this work considers how the self is embodied through varied experiences of transformation. Marks of Obsession considers images of the female body as abject and, visualized through self-objectification and pain, attempts to comprehend and empathize with the self, as it supports the body to realize dominant social ideals
Spectral landscapes of flow instabilities in brain aneurysms
Get PDFThis paper is associated with a poster winner of a 2020 American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) Milton van Dyke Award for work presented at the DFD Gallery of Fluid Motion. The original poster is available online at the Gallery of Fluid Motion, https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2020.GFM.P0004
Design considerations for overdose education and Naloxone distribution: Results of a multi-stakeholder workshop
Get PDFBackground Opioid overdose epidemic is a public health crisis that is impacting communities around the world. Overdose education and naloxone distribution programs equip and train lay people to respond in the event of an overdose. We aimed to design an open-access naloxone kit and ultra-brief education session for use in point-of-care settings
HeartBeat - An interactive installation to reflect the sentiments of Canadians during pandemics like Covid-19
Get PDFSocial media has given citizens an avenue to express their views on various subjects in their personal lives, policies, and even a way to communicate with each other about their sentiments and emotions. This is key during a pandemic such as Covid-19 where the world is facing a global impact and the need for a pandemic-related public art framework has been sought globally by art societies and researchers to revitalize the society. However, due to the pace of this pandemic, most city art strategy papers require a framework for pandemic related public art especially in Toronto which has an agenda of moving towards becoming a smart city and public art should reflect that. This thesis investigates how might public art installations reflect the sentiment of smart communities in a pandemic. I designed 'HeartBeat', an interactive installation and visualization to reflect the emotions of citizens during the pandemic using Research Through Design and user-centered design approaches. The goal is to reflect the sentiment of Canadians during the current pandemic. HeartBeat uses tweets from Canada and visualizes the popular emotion groups during the pandemic period in an interactive installation. To evaluate HeartBeat, I conducted case study evaluation for various time periods and semi-structured interviews by selecting experts such as artists, designers, curators, policymakers, and data journalists. The contributions from HeartBeat could provide designers and artists exploring the pandemic to consider these design choices and methodologies; discussion shows the ways available to understand emotions of citizens during a pandemic in a smart city; detailed process design and technology stack architecture for pandemic related public art which could be used as public art frameworks during pandemics