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The best part about having Patches of Peace accepted to the first Level Up, is that it's not needed until the end of August. Whew!

Posted by cloo @ 05:12 PM EST [Link]

From Brody to JODI: One of my charges over the summer is reworking the common year digital art course series, Systems of Media Representation/New Media Images, and integrating net and game art content. It's a bizarre thing to do without a canon, per se. Should I try to integrate mainstream games? Independent games? Or try to broaden the field with some artist-created games? Of course, these students are probably going to be getting more game mods than usual... In the end, I wonder if I'm just putting in my favorites, maybe a few ones other academics seem to like (never was fond of The Intruder-- Borges notwithstanding). Maybe in 10 years no one will give a second look to these games. Maybe someone else looks at what I've done, and decides those must be the games to teach. They won't even remember it was a bunch of blindfolded researchers with a bunch of darts to start. Note to game developers: want to immortalize your game with the university crowd? Start courting the game faculty now ;-)

Posted by cloo @ 07:20 PM EST [Link]

I got it! I got the job! Yay me. Starting July 1st as a Lecturer in Interactive Arts! Now I really have to get finished developing the course...

Posted by cloo @ 11:01 PM EST [Link]

Went for my first academic job interview yesterday: Lecturer in Interactive Arts at SFU. I'm traumatized. First of all, there's "the committee." I think I was doing OK until the last few people started asking their questions- at that point, we're 30-40 minutes in, and we've moved beyond any reasonable conversation length. Now its officially an interrogation. And then there's the coded questions. To paraphrase: "You're young. [pause...uncomfortable laughter] How do you see this affecting your relationship with your students?" I'm young? I AM young! Shit, they're not going to hire me because I'm young! It's too late to start prematurely aging- drinking whisky, smoking, having 5 kids before I'm 28. But wait, what's the question here? [little beads of sweat form on forehead] Is it a lack of experience question? Is it an authority question? Actually, I have a veritable laundry list of coordination xp with undergrads...yes, I should say that. And good rapport. But not too good...Wait, wait! It hits me after. It's code. They're refering to a specific incident, with a specific previous lecturer. They're talking about dispute resolution. It has nothing to do with age per se. Can they really not hire me because I remind them of someone else?

And, damn, it wasn't until after the interview I decoded the question. And I have fantastic dispute resolution (well, avoidance) skills. Any project manager has to! You set clear, agreed upon expectations. You always make sure there's an exit strategy (avoiding those endless debates). You insist on students taking responsibility before a problem escalates. And, hell, I'm not shy about talking to someone privately about crossing over the line. But I don't get to answer the question again, do I? But wait, the question wasn't even asked, was it???

Actually, I think I did pretty well, but if I don't find out one way or the other soon, I could quite possibly go mad...

Posted by cloo @ 12:33 PM EST [Link]

Been too busy over the past few weeks to blog anything substantial-- but this was one of the funniest things I'd seen in a while. CatPrin: Tailor for Cats! (from Shift). Tee hee.

Posted by cloo @ 10:13 PM EST [Link]

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