18th Annual Salute to Dr. Seuss
Henry Jenkins
Mon Jan 26, 07-09:00pm, 6-120
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
Gather around, boys and girls of all ages, for a celebration of the sublime and wacky world of Doctor Seuss. You will hear Prof. Henry Jenkins read from his works and talk about Seuss's relationship to Modern Art and popular culture. We will also screen his remarkable live action feature film, 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. An MIT Tradition marches forward. No need to enroll! All are welcome.
Contact: Generoso Fierro, NE25-385, x3-5038, generoso@mit.edu
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A short, practical course on Focus Group Research in Academic and Corporate Settings: The Whys and Hows
Clara Fernandez
Mon Jan 19, Tue Jan 20, Wed Jan 21, 02-04:00pm, 2-142
Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Limited to 20 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
Instructor: Cheryl K. Olson, Sc.D., who is co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at MGH, and splits her time between academic research and real-world consulting. She'll use her own focus group studies with teens and parents about video games as teaching examples.
Content includes:
• When and why to consider focus groups (qualitative studies) in academic or corporate research.
• Using focus groups for media research.
• Planning your research (from research questions to human subjects paperwork).
• Designing a focus group protocol (questions and procedures).
• Budgets and practical concerns.
• Recruiting participants.
Contact: Clara Fernandez, NE25-379, x4-9115, telmah@MIT.EDU
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Experience Design Workshop: Taught by Razorfish
Nadya Direkova MIT Alum, Senior Information Architect< Razorfish, Generoso Fierro
Mon Jan 12, Tue Jan 13, Wed Jan 14, 10am-04:00pm, 1-134
Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Signup by: 05-Jan-2009
Limited to 20 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
Buying e-tickets, downloading a song, chatting with friends on Facebook… you live through digital experiences every day. We invite you to learn how these experiences can be designed so that you can easily find and do what you want. Whether you are an engineer or designer, this course will challenge you to start work by studying users – not technology – first. We’ll talk about user personas, their moment-by-moment decisions and their full lifecycle relationship with your design. In the first part of the course, we’ll present classic design practices, digital trends and analyze experiences that work well and those that don’t. In the second part, you will create a design document for a website of digital campaign. The class will end with a design competition.
Contact: Nadya Direkova, nadya.direkova@razorfish.com
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GAMBIT: Videogame Company Tours
Philip Tan
Fri Jan 9, 12-04:00pm, NE25-LOBBY, Tour of Linden Lab
Fri Jan 16, 12-04:00pm, NE25-LOUNGE, Tour of Fable Vision
Fri Jan 23, 12-04:00pm, NE25-LOUNGE, Tour of 38 Studios
Enrollment limited: first come, first served
Repeating event. Participants welcome at any session
GAMBIT, a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the government of Singapore created to explore new directions for the development of games as a medium. Philip Tan,the executive director of US operations for GAMBIT will be leading tours of local video game companies to help you understand the day to day goings on of the rapidly growing video game industry.
Contact: Philip Tan, NE25-381, (617) 324-9129, philip@MIT.EDU
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Is This On? (Learn To Be a College DJ)
Generoso Fierro
Wed Jan 28, 06-08:00pm, 50-030
Enrollment limited: first come, first served
Signup by: 10-Jan-2009
Limited to 30 participants.
Single session event
Checking levels, making a segue, cueing vinyl (vinyl-what's that?)
Get to know your campus radio station (WMBR) as DJ Generoso teaches you various skills of doing a radio show. Then, learn some history of WMBR (the first punk rock radio show in the USA), have a tour of the station and obtain membership information.
Freshly baked cookies and milk will be provided because Andy would've wanted it that way.
Contact: Generoso Fierro, 13-2090, x3-5965, generoso@mit.edu
Cosponsor: WMBR Radio
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Lecture: Professor Chris Swain: The Future of Games
Doris Rusch
Tue Jan 27, 07-09:00pm, 6-120
Enrollment limited: first come, first served
Single session event
This talk will focus on the current trends in digital games - what is happening now and why - and points toward the future of the medium. The talk will include perspective on the influence of academic programs on the medium as well as perspective from an industry point of view. Trends are grounded in business and technical realities and supported with both social science research and market research. The always-on culture of the
internet, mobile phones, and connected consoles continues to gain prominence in today's world. As that happens more and more applications rely on game structures to entertain
us, inform us, strengthen our communities, organize us around social causes, and make us more productive.
Contact: Doris Rusch, NE25-379, x8-8532, dcrusch@MIT.EDU
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Making Deep Games: An inspirational workshop about harnessing the power of metaphors for experience design
Doris Rusch, Joshua Diaz
Thu Jan 8, 10am-06:00pm, NE25-373
Enrollment limited: first come, first served
Single session event
In this workshop, attendees will learn how to become more conscious about the mechanisms of complex abstract concepts, to pin down their evasive elements, to translate them into concrete rule sets and to make them tangible via procedural metaphors. This workshop aims at demystifying complex abstract ideas such as HONOR, REGRET, LOYALTY or JUSTICE by teaching a methodology to analyse and dissect them. It is a step-by-step tutorial to foster awareness, reflection, inspiration and a systematic approach to the purposeful design of deep games.
Contact: Doris Rusch, NE25-383, (617) 258-8532, dcrusch@MIT.EDU
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Mystery Science Theatre 3000
Jason Begy, Generoso Fierro
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)
Fee: 5.00 for The purpose of the fee is to fly out Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Bea
On January 17th, 2009 at 7PM in 26-100, the creators of the original Mystery Science Theater 3000, Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu will join Jason Begy and Generoso Fierro of Comparative Media Studies for an examination of the hit cult television show. The will be a mix of discussion, rare clips and surprises. We ask a donation of $5.00 at the door, NO ADVANCED TICKETS WILL BE SOLD. On January 18th session at 7PM in 6-120, Jason and Generoso will show their favorite episodes and shorts for free.
Sponsored by Comparative Media Studies and Writing and Humanistic Studies.
Contact: Jason Begy, NE25-385, NA, jsbegy@MIT.EDU
Mystery Science Theater with Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu
Jason Begy, Generoso Fierro
The Saturday Jan 17th session in 26-100 features a discussion with Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu, creators of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The event will be lead by Jason Begy and Generoso Fierro of Comparative Media Studies. It will feature a lively chat, clips and surprises. A suggested $5.00 donation can be made at the door to fray the cost of travel and security.
Sat Jan 17, 07pm-12:00am, 26-100
Mystery Science Theater 3000-Jason and Generoso Fav Episodes
Jason Begy, Generoso Fierro
On the Sunday January 18th session in 6-120,Comparative Media Studies' Jason Begy and Generoso Fierro will be showing their favorite episodes and clips of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The Sunday session is FREE.
Sun Jan 18, 07pm-12:00am, 6-120
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The Feature Films of Jia Zhangke
Generoso Fierro
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)
The winner of the Golden Lion at the 2006 Venice Film Festival and twice nominated for the Palm D'Or at Cannes, Jia Zhangke, is a graduate of the famed Beijing Film Academy. His films explore youth culture and the effects of globalization from a minimalist/realist film style. We will be screening his feature films along with some of his well known short films in chronological order, beginning with his second film, "Platform".
Contact: Generoso Fierro, NE25-385, x3-5038, generoso@mit.edu
Generoso Fierro
MONDAY JANUARY 5th 6:30PM: ZHANTAI (Platform) 2000
154 Minutes
Mon Jan 5, 06:30-08:30pm, 4-237
Generoso Fierro
TUESDAY JANUARY 6th 6:30PM: Ren Xiao Yao (Unknown Pleasures) 2002
113 Minutes
Tue Jan 6, 06:30-08:30pm, 4-237
Generoso Fierro
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 7th 6:30PM: Shijie (The World) 2004
140 Minutes
Wed Jan 7, 06:30-08:30pm, 4-237
Generoso Fierro
THURSDAY JANUARY 8th 6:30PM: Sanxia haoren (Still Life) 2006
111 Minutes
Thu Jan 8, 06:30-08:30pm, 4-237
Generoso Fierro
THIS EVENING's FILM HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO TECHNICAL ISSUES. MY SINCERE APOLOGIES
Fri Jan 9, 06:30-08:30pm, 4-237
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The GAMBIT Video Game Adaptation Workshop
Matthew Weise, Geoffrey Long
Thu Jan 15, 09am-05:00pm, NE25-373
Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Single session event
This is a single, day-long workshop run by members of the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab. In it participants will create a game based on movie, book, or comic title of their choosing.
The workshop will begin in the morning with a short lecture on methods of transmedia adaptation, the process by which media artifacts (such as Star Wars, Watchmen, Hamlet, etc.) are transferred from one medium to another, in this case
video games. Afterward, the group will divide into small teams, each of whom will decide upon their own media property to adapt into a video game. Final choices will be discussed among the larger group.
Contact: Matthew Weise, NE25-365, x4-9113, sajon@mit.edu
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The Games of Ender's Game
Elliot M. Pinkus
Thu Jan 29, 01-04:00pm, 1-150
Enrollment limited: first come, first served
Single session event
Join us for a fun and informal discussion analyzing Orson Scott Card’s award-winning novel "Ender’s Game." We will be looking at how Card structures the book around “games,” both in the literal and metaphorical sense. What can we learn from the various games played by the characters (the Arcade, the Battle Room, the Fantasy Game, the Command Simulator)? How do the characters treat life as a “game” and what do their styles of “play” reveal about them? We will be using board games and video games to frame parts of the discussion, while drawing from game design theory.
Contact: Elliot M. Pinkus, NE25, (617) 715-2572, emp85@MIT.EDU
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The Science Fiction Work of J. Michael Straczynski: Babylon 5 and Jeremiah
Generoso Fierro
Thu Jan 15, 07-09:00pm, 6-120, Host: Shariann Lewitt
Thu Jan 22, 07-09:00pm, 6-120, Host:Philip Tan & Geoff Long
Thu Jan 29, 07-09:00pm, 6-120, Host: Henry Jenkins
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Repeating event. Participants welcome at any session
Hang out with your fellow Minbari, Narn, Centauri, and Vorlons--or humans, if you want--while you gear up for J. Michael Straczynski's visit to MIT in May. Watch screenings of Straczynski's groundbreaking series Babylon 5 and Jeremiah, with Comparative Media Studies co-Director Henry Jenkins (Jan 29th), Singapore-Gambit Game Lab U.S. Executive Director Philip Tan (Jan 22nd), and sci-fi author Shariann Lewitt (Jan 15th).
Contact: Generoso Fierro, NE25-385, x3-5038, generoso@mit.edu
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