truna aka j.turner - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by truna aka j.turner

Research paper thumbnail of Destination space: experiential spatiality and stories

Because stories are important. People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the o... more Because stories are important. People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around. Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power. [Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad 1991] The z-axis is you seeing something from a different point of view without moving [Jack Turner] This paper is about game and virtual world conceptualisations of space and some rich challenges that arise when we undertake the design of such environments for immersive experiences beyond the specificity of game-play. It sets out to explore two facets of this space in particular: the manner in which the space exhibits a designed condition for the forms of experiences which take place within it; and some explorations into ways in which these interactions can be understood in order to design 'different' experiences. The discussion is based on three case studies of projects which have explored the stories, engagement and experiences within (and without) game world spaces.

Research paper thumbnail of Designing for Engaging Experiences

Nordic Design Research Conference, Aug 29, 2009

This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and a... more This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and analysis, are translated into prototypes. It is particularly concerned with getting closer to people's experience of shaping a design space. The workshop draws inspiration from data-products resulting from interactions in specific places with the intention of supporting both those who work with integrating understandings of such experiences into design and those interested in the way material provokes ideas and inspiration for design.

Research paper thumbnail of Performing design analysis

We report and reflect upon the early stages of a research project that endeavours to establish a ... more We report and reflect upon the early stages of a research project that endeavours to establish a culture of critical design thinking in a tertiary game design course. We first discuss the current state of the Australian game industry and consider some perceived issues in game design courses and graduate outcomes. The second section presents our response to these issues:

Research paper thumbnail of Destination space: experiential spatiality and stories

Proceedings of the 2006 international conference on Game research and development, Dec 4, 2006

Because stories are important. People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the o... more Because stories are important. People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around. Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power. [Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad 1991] The z-axis is you seeing something from a different point of view without moving [Jack Turner] This paper is about game and virtual world conceptualisations of space and some rich challenges that arise when we undertake the design of such environments for immersive experiences beyond the specificity of game-play. It sets out to explore two facets of this space in particular: the manner in which the space exhibits a designed condition for the forms of experiences which take place within it; and some explorations into ways in which these interactions can be understood in order to design 'different' experiences. The discussion is based on three case studies of projects which have explored the stories, engagement and experiences within (and without) game world spaces.

Research paper thumbnail of Designing for Engaging Experiences

Nordes 2009: Engaging Artifacts, 2009

WORKSHOP Leaders: David Browning, Discipline of IT, JCU, Townsville, Australia Mads Bodker, Cente... more WORKSHOP Leaders: David Browning, Discipline of IT, JCU, Townsville, Australia Mads Bodker, Center for Applied ICT, Copenhagen, Denmark Marlyn van Erp, hAAi, Rotterdam, Netherlands Nicola Bidwell, ICT4D, UCT, Cape Town, South Africa Truna Aka J. Turner, CRC for Interaction Design. QUT (Brisbane), QLD AU, Australia, truna@acid.net.au Email: david.browning@jcu.edu.au, mb.caict@cbs.dk, marlyn.van.erp@haai.nl, truna@acid.net.au, Description: This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and analysis, are translated into prototypes. It is particularly concerned with getting closer to people’s experience of shaping a design space. The workshop draws inspiration from data-products resulting from interactions in specific places with the intention of supporting both those who work with integrating understandings of such experiences into design and those interested in the way material provokes ideas and inspiration for design.

Research paper thumbnail of Performing design: game design, practice, praxis and the theatre of the impressed

Australasian Crc For Interaction Design School of Design Creative Industries Faculty Institute For Creative Industries and Innovation, Nov 29, 2012

This paper is a reflection on a design teaching project that endeavours to establish a culture of... more This paper is a reflection on a design teaching project that endeavours to establish a culture of critical design thinking in a tertiary game design course. In the first instance, the 'performing design' project arose as a response to contemporary issues and tensions in the Australian games industry and game design education; in essence, the problem of how to scaffold undergraduate students from their entry point as 'players' (the impressed) into becoming designers. The performing design project therefore started as a small-scale intervention to inspire reflection in a wider debate that includes: the potential evolution of the contemporary games industry; the purpose of game design education; and the positioning of game design as a design discipline. This journal and associated articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 New Zealand License.

Research paper thumbnail of Mirror, Mirror: Claiming Digital Places of the Mundane Mapping Culture

This paper offers a discussion on the “mundane” or quotidian aspects of that software which might... more This paper offers a discussion on the “mundane” or quotidian aspects of that software which might at first glance seem to be a fine example of the extraordinary. It looks at game worlds in terms of an ancient human desire to articulate place in the world and ...

Research paper thumbnail of Living the indie life

Proceedings of The 9th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment: Matters of Life and Death, 2013

In contemporary game development circles the 'game making jam' has become an important ri... more In contemporary game development circles the 'game making jam' has become an important rite of passage and baptism event, an exploration space and a central indie lifestyle affirmation and community event. Game jams have recently become a focus for design researchers interested in the creative process. In this paper we tell the story of an established local game jam and our various documentation and data collection methods. We present the beginnings of the current project, which seeks to map the creative teams and their process in the space of the challenge, and which aims to enable participants to be more than the objects of the data collection. A perceived issue is that typical documentation approaches are 'about' the event as opposed to 'made by' the participants and are thus both at odds with the spirit of the jam as a phenomenon and do not really access the rich playful potential of participant experience. In the data collection and visualisation projects described here, we focus on using collected data to re-include the participants in telling stories about their experiences of the event as a place-based experience. Our goal is to find a means to encourage production of 'anecdata' - data based on individual story telling that is subjective, malleable, and resists collection via formal mechanisms - and to enable mimesis, or active narrating, on the part of the participants. We present a concept design for data as game based on the logic of early medieval maps and we reflect on how we could enable participation in the data collection itself.

Research paper thumbnail of Performing design: game design, practice, praxis and the theatre of the impressed

Journal.creative technologies, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Performing design analysis: game design creativity and the theatre of the impressed

We report and reflect upon the early stages of a research project that endeavours to establish a ... more We report and reflect upon the early stages of a research project that endeavours to establish a culture of critical design thinking in a tertiary game design course. We first discuss the current state of the Australian game industry and consider some perceived issues in game design courses and graduate outcomes. The second section presents our response to these issues:

Research paper thumbnail of Designing spatial story-telling software

What does it mean when we design for accessibility, inclusivity and "dissolving boundari... more What does it mean when we design for accessibility, inclusivity and "dissolving boundaries" -- particularly those boundaries between the design philosophy, the software/interface actuality and the stated goals? This paper is about the principles underlying a research project called 'The Little Grey Cat engine' or greyCat. GreyCat has grown out of our experience in using commercial game engines as production

Research paper thumbnail of Heritage & Habitus: Designing to Support Situated, Living Knowledge

We refer to an ongoing endeavour aimed to assist Indigenous communities in Australian in persisti... more We refer to an ongoing endeavour aimed to assist Indigenous communities in Australian in persisting their personal and cultural memories linked to temporally dynamic interactions in situ. The design enables Indigenous users to upload items they collect themselves (e.g. photographs, audio, video) using mobile phones, in their traditional lands into a topographical simulation; and, then to associate these items with their own hand-drawn markings in the simulation. The design responds to the rich interconnectedness between Indigenous culture and the land and the need to converge spatial information technologies with practices that are not, inherently, conditioned by the geometries of the West. We propose that the design approach contributes to thinking about ways that mobile guides can respond to multiple realities and corporeal and affective phenomena.

Research paper thumbnail of Wanderer Beyond Game Worlds

ABSTRACT We discuss issues and opportunities for designing experiences with 3D simulations of nat... more ABSTRACT We discuss issues and opportunities for designing experiences with 3D simulations of nature where the landscape and the interactant engage in an equitable dialogue. We consider the way digital representations of the world and design habits tend ...

Research paper thumbnail of Through the looking glass: game worlds as representations and views from elsewhere

ABSTRACT This paper describes the rationale and subsequent development stages of a work in progre... more ABSTRACT This paper describes the rationale and subsequent development stages of a work in progress: a graffiti toolkit for rich spatial 3D environments and an actual world mnemonic collection enterprise using mobile technologies. The driving concept for the design of the toolkit is ...

Research paper thumbnail of Designing for Naturally Engaging Experiences

This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and a... more This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and analysis, are translated into prototypes. It is particularly concerned with getting closer to people’s experience of shaping a design space. The workshop draws inspiration from data-products resulting from interactions in natural, unbuilt places with the intention of supporting both those with work integrating understandings of such experiences into design and those interested in the way material provokes ideas and inspiration for design.

Research paper thumbnail of Destination space: experiential spatiality and stories

Because stories are important. People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the o... more Because stories are important. People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around. Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power. [Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad 1991] The z-axis is you seeing something from a different point of view without moving [Jack Turner] This paper is about game and virtual world conceptualisations of space and some rich challenges that arise when we undertake the design of such environments for immersive experiences beyond the specificity of game-play. It sets out to explore two facets of this space in particular: the manner in which the space exhibits a designed condition for the forms of experiences which take place within it; and some explorations into ways in which these interactions can be understood in order to design 'different' experiences. The discussion is based on three case studies of projects which have explored the stories, engagement and experiences within (and without) game world spaces.

Research paper thumbnail of Designing for Engaging Experiences

Nordic Design Research Conference, Aug 29, 2009

This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and a... more This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and analysis, are translated into prototypes. It is particularly concerned with getting closer to people's experience of shaping a design space. The workshop draws inspiration from data-products resulting from interactions in specific places with the intention of supporting both those who work with integrating understandings of such experiences into design and those interested in the way material provokes ideas and inspiration for design.

Research paper thumbnail of Performing design analysis

We report and reflect upon the early stages of a research project that endeavours to establish a ... more We report and reflect upon the early stages of a research project that endeavours to establish a culture of critical design thinking in a tertiary game design course. We first discuss the current state of the Australian game industry and consider some perceived issues in game design courses and graduate outcomes. The second section presents our response to these issues:

Research paper thumbnail of Destination space: experiential spatiality and stories

Proceedings of the 2006 international conference on Game research and development, Dec 4, 2006

Because stories are important. People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the o... more Because stories are important. People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around. Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power. [Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad 1991] The z-axis is you seeing something from a different point of view without moving [Jack Turner] This paper is about game and virtual world conceptualisations of space and some rich challenges that arise when we undertake the design of such environments for immersive experiences beyond the specificity of game-play. It sets out to explore two facets of this space in particular: the manner in which the space exhibits a designed condition for the forms of experiences which take place within it; and some explorations into ways in which these interactions can be understood in order to design 'different' experiences. The discussion is based on three case studies of projects which have explored the stories, engagement and experiences within (and without) game world spaces.

Research paper thumbnail of Designing for Engaging Experiences

Nordes 2009: Engaging Artifacts, 2009

WORKSHOP Leaders: David Browning, Discipline of IT, JCU, Townsville, Australia Mads Bodker, Cente... more WORKSHOP Leaders: David Browning, Discipline of IT, JCU, Townsville, Australia Mads Bodker, Center for Applied ICT, Copenhagen, Denmark Marlyn van Erp, hAAi, Rotterdam, Netherlands Nicola Bidwell, ICT4D, UCT, Cape Town, South Africa Truna Aka J. Turner, CRC for Interaction Design. QUT (Brisbane), QLD AU, Australia, truna@acid.net.au Email: david.browning@jcu.edu.au, mb.caict@cbs.dk, marlyn.van.erp@haai.nl, truna@acid.net.au, Description: This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and analysis, are translated into prototypes. It is particularly concerned with getting closer to people’s experience of shaping a design space. The workshop draws inspiration from data-products resulting from interactions in specific places with the intention of supporting both those who work with integrating understandings of such experiences into design and those interested in the way material provokes ideas and inspiration for design.

Research paper thumbnail of Performing design: game design, practice, praxis and the theatre of the impressed

Australasian Crc For Interaction Design School of Design Creative Industries Faculty Institute For Creative Industries and Innovation, Nov 29, 2012

This paper is a reflection on a design teaching project that endeavours to establish a culture of... more This paper is a reflection on a design teaching project that endeavours to establish a culture of critical design thinking in a tertiary game design course. In the first instance, the 'performing design' project arose as a response to contemporary issues and tensions in the Australian games industry and game design education; in essence, the problem of how to scaffold undergraduate students from their entry point as 'players' (the impressed) into becoming designers. The performing design project therefore started as a small-scale intervention to inspire reflection in a wider debate that includes: the potential evolution of the contemporary games industry; the purpose of game design education; and the positioning of game design as a design discipline. This journal and associated articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 New Zealand License.

Research paper thumbnail of Mirror, Mirror: Claiming Digital Places of the Mundane Mapping Culture

This paper offers a discussion on the “mundane” or quotidian aspects of that software which might... more This paper offers a discussion on the “mundane” or quotidian aspects of that software which might at first glance seem to be a fine example of the extraordinary. It looks at game worlds in terms of an ancient human desire to articulate place in the world and ...

Research paper thumbnail of Living the indie life

Proceedings of The 9th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment: Matters of Life and Death, 2013

In contemporary game development circles the 'game making jam' has become an important ri... more In contemporary game development circles the 'game making jam' has become an important rite of passage and baptism event, an exploration space and a central indie lifestyle affirmation and community event. Game jams have recently become a focus for design researchers interested in the creative process. In this paper we tell the story of an established local game jam and our various documentation and data collection methods. We present the beginnings of the current project, which seeks to map the creative teams and their process in the space of the challenge, and which aims to enable participants to be more than the objects of the data collection. A perceived issue is that typical documentation approaches are 'about' the event as opposed to 'made by' the participants and are thus both at odds with the spirit of the jam as a phenomenon and do not really access the rich playful potential of participant experience. In the data collection and visualisation projects described here, we focus on using collected data to re-include the participants in telling stories about their experiences of the event as a place-based experience. Our goal is to find a means to encourage production of 'anecdata' - data based on individual story telling that is subjective, malleable, and resists collection via formal mechanisms - and to enable mimesis, or active narrating, on the part of the participants. We present a concept design for data as game based on the logic of early medieval maps and we reflect on how we could enable participation in the data collection itself.

Research paper thumbnail of Performing design: game design, practice, praxis and the theatre of the impressed

Journal.creative technologies, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Performing design analysis: game design creativity and the theatre of the impressed

We report and reflect upon the early stages of a research project that endeavours to establish a ... more We report and reflect upon the early stages of a research project that endeavours to establish a culture of critical design thinking in a tertiary game design course. We first discuss the current state of the Australian game industry and consider some perceived issues in game design courses and graduate outcomes. The second section presents our response to these issues:

Research paper thumbnail of Designing spatial story-telling software

What does it mean when we design for accessibility, inclusivity and "dissolving boundari... more What does it mean when we design for accessibility, inclusivity and "dissolving boundaries" -- particularly those boundaries between the design philosophy, the software/interface actuality and the stated goals? This paper is about the principles underlying a research project called 'The Little Grey Cat engine' or greyCat. GreyCat has grown out of our experience in using commercial game engines as production

Research paper thumbnail of Heritage & Habitus: Designing to Support Situated, Living Knowledge

We refer to an ongoing endeavour aimed to assist Indigenous communities in Australian in persisti... more We refer to an ongoing endeavour aimed to assist Indigenous communities in Australian in persisting their personal and cultural memories linked to temporally dynamic interactions in situ. The design enables Indigenous users to upload items they collect themselves (e.g. photographs, audio, video) using mobile phones, in their traditional lands into a topographical simulation; and, then to associate these items with their own hand-drawn markings in the simulation. The design responds to the rich interconnectedness between Indigenous culture and the land and the need to converge spatial information technologies with practices that are not, inherently, conditioned by the geometries of the West. We propose that the design approach contributes to thinking about ways that mobile guides can respond to multiple realities and corporeal and affective phenomena.

Research paper thumbnail of Wanderer Beyond Game Worlds

ABSTRACT We discuss issues and opportunities for designing experiences with 3D simulations of nat... more ABSTRACT We discuss issues and opportunities for designing experiences with 3D simulations of nature where the landscape and the interactant engage in an equitable dialogue. We consider the way digital representations of the world and design habits tend ...

Research paper thumbnail of Through the looking glass: game worlds as representations and views from elsewhere

ABSTRACT This paper describes the rationale and subsequent development stages of a work in progre... more ABSTRACT This paper describes the rationale and subsequent development stages of a work in progress: a graffiti toolkit for rich spatial 3D environments and an actual world mnemonic collection enterprise using mobile technologies. The driving concept for the design of the toolkit is ...

Research paper thumbnail of Designing for Naturally Engaging Experiences

This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and a... more This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and analysis, are translated into prototypes. It is particularly concerned with getting closer to people’s experience of shaping a design space. The workshop draws inspiration from data-products resulting from interactions in natural, unbuilt places with the intention of supporting both those with work integrating understandings of such experiences into design and those interested in the way material provokes ideas and inspiration for design.