Catalyst Conversations: Game Matters

Join the MIT List Visual Arts Center in partnership with Catalyst Conversations for Game Matters, Jeremy Couillard and Mikael Jakobsson in Conversation.

How do we respond to technology?
Why do games matter?
Play and games are interactive, why do we need to play?
How do we learn by play?
How do games help us see our own social arrangements?
How do we create those important social spaces?

Artist Jeremy Couillard whose projects exist as playable games, web projects, and video installations will be in conversation with research scientist Mikael Jakobsson. Their conversation will explore some of these large questions from both a critical and design point of view. Join us for what promises to be an exciting and timely conversation.

Jeremy Couillard, a self-taught coder and digital artist, drawing on the ideas of the anthropologist David Graeber, says that its imaginative world can help us see the contingency and hallucinatory quality of our own social arrangements.

Mikael Jakobsson conducts research on the border between game design and game culture. He investigates how gaming activities fit into social and cultural practices, and how this knowledge can be integrated into the development process. During his stay at MIT, he serves as Project Manager for the Imagination, Computation, and Expression Laboratory.

This program has been developed in conjunction with the first institutional solo exhibit of Jeremy Couillard, whose work straddles the worlds of contemporary art and independent video games.

A Cambridge Science Festival Event.