Month: November 2015

Please leave comments for the game creators! Tell them what your experience of their game was like, what you enjoyed or found difficult, what you think they could add if they are developing this game further.

Write the title of the game in your comment’s subject line.

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From UMD’s class Transforming Cultures and Technologies: Gender, Race, and Digital Media.
These games were made by individuals and represent preliminary explorations in Twine creativity; games were not required to be 100% complete and some students will be developing their games further for their final projects.

To Gym Or Not To Gym (about exercise addiction)

Just a Girl at a Show (about sexual harassment at live music shows)

First Day of Computer Science Class (about being a woman subjected to sexism and harassment in a male-dominated field)

The Party (about college house parties, alcohol, and sexual consent)

Living in the Digital (about everyday life in the digital age)

The Web (about navigating the internet)

Why Me? (about the aftermath of sexual assault)

Sorority Recruitment (about sorority recruitment)

Friday Night (about a 20-something-year-old woman as she ventures into her Friday night escapades)

White & Black; Right & Wrong (about social perceptions of young men of color, inspired by #blacklivesmatter)

Industry Standards (about trying to break into the video game industry)

Comfort (about the challenges faced by a gender nonconforming Vietnamese-American pre-teen)

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From MIT’s class on Technology and Culture
These games were created by groups of around four students.

Twine Group 1
http://philome.la/brenesrob/twinebook/play

Twine Group 2
http://philome.la/wwnlee/smile-were-watching

Twine Group 3
http://philome.la/ariostas/research-simulator

Twine Group 4
http://philome.la/Chevalant/cyborg-journey

Twine Group 5
http://philome.la/spikeoren/paws

Twine Group 6
http://philome.la/jesszwang/identity-theft/play

Twine Group 7
http://philome.la/21a500twine/21a500

Twine Group 8
http://philome.la/karsonota/debbies-journey/play

Twine Group 9
http://philome.la/danimman/adhd/play

Twine Group 10
http://philome.la/mizanrk/menarche-madness

For our remix video, Liv and I created a video that exposes the flaws that encompass white feminism. We focused on celebrity white feminism, as that is where it is most prevalent. We pulled examples from celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Lena Dunham, Demi Lovato, and Patricia Arquette. Taylor Swift is a prominent white feminist as shown in her music video for “Shake It Off” and it’s cultural appropriation of blacks and twerking. She also displays a white washed Africa in her music video for “Wildest Dreams.” However, her most relevant display of white feminism comes from the twitter feud she had with Nicki Minaj back in August over VMA nominations. Minaj had originally tweeted about black artists not being fully represented in the nominations; Swift had thought Minaj was indirectly mentioning her, making the issue about herself and not the issue of blacks and other minorities being misrepresented (a white feminism ideology). We used audio from Lena Dunham’s extremely white feministic show ‘Girls,’ which follow the lives of four upper class 20-year-old New Yorkers. The show’s cast is predominately white with little incorporation of minorities or those with ethnic backgrounds, a misconception of a place full of diversity. The audio exhibits the extremely white and venal problems the four girls face as they try and make it in the big city. We followed the images and examples of celebrity white feminism with examples of good and inclusive celebrity feminism and pulled quotes and images from celebrities such as Emma Watson and 13-year-old Rowan Blanchard as well as a clip from Destiny Child’s “Survivor” music video, all things that exemplify and exhibit inclusive and all-encompassing feminism.

Liv and I were able to finish our video but if I were to extend it, I would definitely include more video clips of other celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and some of her antics at the VMAs that were highly offensive and her argument that they weren’t. I would also focus more on the editing and placement of clips, as I know some of them did not match up well with the audio we selected. I had used iMovie several times in the past so I did not have to worry about technical difficulties as I already knew what I was doing, it was just a matter of getting the material in the right order and narrowing down our content, as we had a lot of choose from. This allowed us to finish our video in the allotted class time.

Remixing definitely allowed me to draw connections that I probably would not have emphasized before. I would not have drawn the parallel between “Girls” and Taylor Swift or the other celebrities for that matter. Remixing definitely allows for the creator to drawn a multitude of connections and parallels between the source work and what you are remixing.

After watching Brainwane ’s video “Pipeline” and reading the comments following the video, I really got a better sense of what exactly I was trying to convey through my video. Brainwane’s video projects the message of gender inequalities in the Computer Science/Technical field and she includes examples from movies/TV shows, advertisements she gets on her computer, and images that promote women in the technical field. In Brainwane’s second article “Vids I Learned From,” Brainwane compiles a list of videos and what she took away from them. For example, Brainwane mentions that she learned each video has a message; in this case, she exemplified that through her message of inequality in the technological field. She also mentioned more technical aspects of editing such as using stills. Brainwane mentioned that the use of stills is just as impactful as using video clips and zooming just the right way and in on a direct subject in the still really emphasizes the point the image is projecting to the audience. While creating my vid, I took all these things into consideration and what they presented to the audience.

Overall, I thought the remix project was a really interesting and compelling project that allowed us to get first-hand experience in what it’s like to create your own remix video. Creating a remix video is a lot different than simply creating a montage of images or clips from a vacation. With the remix vid, we had to come up with an argument or message and then find examples of that and then actually create the vid. We had to match up the video or picture clips with the background audio and tell a compelling story or argument that was also entertaining. The project was a great learning experience and it really made me realize how much time and effort people put into creating a powerful vid that expresses a major and persuasive argument through the mash-up of video clips, images, and audio.

link to video: http://sendvid.com/l4vsji6d