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A Competition and Journal Looking Into Philosophy and Games

- Adam Clare

Game Praxis

Games are a very popular cultural medium with a reputation for not being very “deep”. Game Praxis is a new project I’ve co-founded to encourage game makers and players to ask big questions through gameplay. It’s a game competition and a journal focused on philosophy and games.

The goal is simple: generate more interesting content about how games can be used to explore bigger questions. For the first run of Game Praxis pre-existing games can be submitted so if you’ve already made a game that you think should be considered you can do so.

The Game Praxis mission:

Should you choose to accept it? Marx observed philosophers have interpreted the world when the point is to change it. Much the same could be said for the game industry. We need to build more than better worlds, we need to build a better world. We see crunch, the precarious careers of late capital, and a troubled and troubling apprehension of gender in game and the game industry as symptoms of an underlying pathology of the spirit. In the game industry, the measure of success is money. With all due respect to our invocation of Marx, we aren’t against the production of surplus value but we believe there are more creative ways to evaluate games, game industries and our lives in game.

Check out Game Praxis!

PULP: Using Old Materials for New Movements

- Adam Clare

Art is fun and it can be even more fun when it contributes to changing the world. PULP is an organization that welcomes people (beginners to pros) who are into art and want to make art that uses pre-used materials. This year they’re throwing a party!

PULP: paper art party 2015 is an interactive art and design exhibit integrated with a live music show. The party brings together artists of all fields, musicians, activity groups, and hundreds of guests. We will be raising funds and using our collective design expertise to help a charity in Toronto. Past events have supported the Street Haven at the Crossroads’ women’s shelter and Architecture for Humanity.

This year, the event will take place at Jam Factory Co. situated in south Riverdale within the Greater Toronto Area. The event is set to take place on May 23rd, 2015.

Check out PULP.

WorldFuture Conference 2015

- Adam Clare

If you’re in San Francisco this July you’re going to want to check out the conference of the future: the WorldFuture Conference. They’ll be looking at future-critical issues (many of this issues are what this very site looks at) and be discussing how to prepare for what the future holds.

If we’re not thinking about how our current actions will impact the world in the future we are not giving enough thought to our actions. Think and act about the future people you’ll never meet.

WorldFuture 2015: Making the Future is expected to gather hundreds of foresight-minded professionals of diverse backgrounds. It will provide participants a unique opportunity to network with industry and government peers from around the world, collect actionable insight on future-critical issues and emerging technologies, and build alliances across World Future 2015’s three conference tracks: the Business of Foresight, Global Issues, and Technology & Innovation.

In keeping with our action-oriented theme, we are pleased to announce that Steve Jurvetson, a partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson will be the WorldFuture 2015 keynote speaker. Known as venture capitalist making the future, Steve was the founding VC investor in Hotmail, Interwoven and Kana, and he serves on the Boards of Tesla and SpaceX. Steve was chosen by the SF Chronicle and SF Examiner as one of “the ten people expected to have the greatest impact on the Bay Area in the early part of the 21st Century.”

In addition to two high energy days of interactive sessions, WorldFuture 2015 will also offer two days of pre-conference master courses, a Millennials’ morning of activities for student futurists, special networking events, and offsite trips to relevant area attractions.

Check out WorldFuture 2015.

SXSW ECO in Austin Texas

- Adam Clare

I’m in Austin right now attending (and presenting) at the Captivate Conference and this city has come to impress me. While I’m at that conference about digital design there is another conference happening in Austin that readers of this site may enjoy: SXSW Eco. It’s an event focused on making the world a better place!

SXSW Eco is a conference about solutions – solutions that bring new thinking to today’s challenges and inspire meaningful progress towards a sustainable and prosperous future. This year over 250 speakers will participate in more than 100 sessions that encourage cross-sector collaboration between professionals from business, government, academia, and non-profits.

Each day of programming begins with a Morning Wake Up Call, which highlights the trends driving progress in sustainability across multiple industries, and continues with special presentations from the 2013 Keynotes and Distinguished Speakers.

Find out more here.

Board Game Jam Toronto

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

As one of the organizers of this event I hope you all make it out to Board Game Jam! We’re putting together a weekend filled with building board games and playing them. We figure that through play we can build a bunch of games to bring more fun to the world as well as liven up the gaming community.

It’s happening January 29th-30th and we’d love to see you come out and make a game – particularly if the game is about good things!

Board Game Jam is an opportunity to play creatively with a freedom not normally seen these days. It’s a celebration of simplicity, and a return to some pretty awesome fundamentals. Do you love board games? Then you’re perfectly qualified to do this.
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The point is that board games are both wonderfully accessible and quite deep. Everyone can intuitively understand the basics of what goes into making a board game. On a mechanical level, it’s simple arts and crafts. For people looking to be creative, that can be a great change from making a film or any kind of digital media, which require significant technical knowledge and a team of specialists. But making a board game can be lead you down a rabbit-hole into a world of rich creative exploration and sophisticated design. Like the best games of any sort, making a board game is both easy to learn, and tough to master.

Check out Board Game Jam!

Here’s the Facebook event page.

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