Author: rglas

The GATE Knowledge Transfer Project: Mobile Learning has just been officially announced! In this research project, in which I participate, we aim to improve and evaluate the learning results of mobile applications and games by addressing particular ways of storytelling, spatiality and online collaboration amongst players through social media. The project involves Utrecht University/GAP as well as 7scenes, developer of a mobile storytelling platform for smartphones.

From the GAP website research project description:

To use mobile applications and games for learning purposes an appropriate use of design principles for story-telling, spatial indication and social networks is indispensable. To improve learning results, stories have to be aptly integrated in game-play, maps have to be properly incorporated in the game and must be open for development by players, and social networks have to facilitate a sharing of learning results and processes.

More info on the research project van be found here. For the Utrecht University press release (in Dutch) go here.

Below is a video demonstration of the 7scenes platform.

I will present at the upcoming Infographics conference (March 4, 2011, see HERE for more info). I will be talking about infographics in games, with a focus on different ways information about the state of a game (for example, a charactar’s health) can be communicated to players through infographics within the game’s fictional world.

I’ve done this before, so here’s my list of favorite films of 2010. I could not force myself to make an actual top 10, so below you will find them listed alphabetically.
A few films nevertheless stuck out this year, primarily A Single Man and Un Prophète. I put Herzog’s mesmerizingly awkward My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done in there as well, a far better film than his ho-hum Bad Lieutenant “re-imagining”. Other films that did not receive theatrical releases but really should have are Refn’s raw Viking-film Valhalla Rising and Matsumoto’s wonderfully insane Shinboru. From the runners-up, The American, How to Train Your Dragon , Winnebago Man and Winter’s Bone came closest to the top ten.

My Favorite Films of 2010 (alphabetically):

Inception (Christopher Nolan, USA/UK, 2010)
Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughn, USA/UK, 2010)
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (Werner Herzog, USA/Germany, 2009)
Un Prophète (Jacques Audiard, France/Italy, 2009)
Shinboru (Symbol, Hitoshi Matsumoto, Japan, 2009)
A Single Man (Tom Ford, USA, 2009)
The Social Network (David Fincher, USA, 2010)
Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, USA, 2010)
Valhalla Rising (Nicolas Winding Refn, Denmark/UK, 2009)
Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, USA/Germany, 2009)

Runners-up:
The American, Catfish, Enter the Void, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Four Lions, Greenberg, How To Train Your Dragon, De Leugen, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, A Serious Man, Winnebago Man, Winter’s Bone.

Guilty Pleasures:
Jack-Ass 3D, New Kids Turbo, Piranha 3D, Universal Soldier: Resurrection.

Film I wish I’d seen but still haven’t:
R U There, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Hadewijch, L’Illusioniste, Summer Wars, Trash Humpers, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

Disclaimer: this list primarily consists of films released theatrically in the Netherlands or premiered on a Dutch film festival in 2010.

This Tuesday, I will presenting some of the findings and arguments of my PhD dissertation, called Games of Stake: Control, Agency and Ownership in World of Warcraft, at Broodje Kennis, an ongoing series of “lunch lectures” organised by the University of Amsterdam’s cultural center Spui 25.

For more information about the lecture, including time, location, etc, go here (all in Dutch).

It has been for a while, but I completely forgot to mention it on my blog: my PhD dissertation is available for download at the University of Amsterdam’s Digital Academic Repository. Called Games of Stake: Control, Agency and Ownership in World of Warcraft, the research deals with the ongoing negotiations between players, and between players and the game’s developer Blizzard, which shape and, I argue, define the socio-cultural phenomenen of World of Warcraft.

THIS is the link.

This sunday, I’ll be giving a talk about playing and being played on social networking sites. The focus will be primarily on Zynga’s Farmville and the sometimes dubious business practices causing its success on Facebook. The talk is part of the Vrij Spel event organised by the city of Utrecht’s Culturele Zondagen.

Below you will find the description of my talk, including time and location, from the Vrij Spel website (in Dutch). Go here for more info. While there, don’t forget to check out the many interesting talks by my colleagues from the University of Utrecht and the Utrecht School of the Arts!

ONLINE SPELEN & BESPELEN
Hoe onschuldig zijn gratis spelletjes op sociale netwerksites?

Wie inlogt op Facebook of andere netwerksites wordt vaak al snel besprongen door het ene na het andere internetspel: een vriend doet je een schaap cadeau in Farmville, een ander daagt je uit voor een online popquiz en een derde pocht over zijn laatste wapenfeiten in Mafia Wars. Dit soort online spelletjes vormen misschien een welkome afleiding op een saaie werkdag, maar ze zijn niet altijd even onschuldig. René Glas (onderzoeker/docent nieuwe media, faculteit Geesteswetenschappen UU) kijkt met een kritische blik naar het gebruik en misbruik van sociale netwerken, zowel door de spelers van als de bedrijven achter deze spelletjes.

zo 15:30-16:15 uur, Gebouw Drift 23, collegezaal 1.13, Utrecht

I’ve been invited to talk about World of Warcraft and its governance on a film and lecture program dedicated to dictators, organised by De Verdieping in TrouwAmsterdam.

Below is De Verdieping’s announcement (in Dutch) of the evening’s program. For further details go here.

Nu echt de laatste Great Dictators filmavond met o.a.:

– Slobodan Milošević (documentaire, 56 min.)
– Hans Aarsman (o.a. Volkskrant over Hitler)
– René Glas (o.a. UvA over World of Warcraft)
– Great Dictators-QUIZ (van Amin tot ChaveZ)

We eindigen de reeks heel toepasselijk met ‘BRINGING DOWN A DICTATOR – a Force more Powerful‘, een documentaire van Steve York uit 2002 (56 min.) over de vreedzame opstand in 1999 tegen Slobodan Milošević, de toenmalige president van Servië die in 2006 overleed in zijn VN-cel in Scheveningen.

Hans Aarsman is fotograaf en geeft iedere week commentaar bij nieuwsfoto’s in een eigen rubriek (de Aarsman Collectie) in de kunstbijlage van de Volkskrant. Tijdens de laatste Great Dictators zal hij vertellen over zijn fascinatie voor het boek ‘Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics‘ uit 2003 over de invloed van Hitler’s esthetische opvattingen voor het nazisme.

René Glas, filmcriticus en promovendus aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam, doet al jaren onderzoek naar de World of Warcraft, een online computerspel met tientallen miljoen gebruikers over de hele wereld. Hij zal stilstaan bij het totalitaire karakter van deze game. De maker van het spel, het Amerikaanse bedrijf Blizzard Entertainment, oefent op alle mogelijke manier controle uit via o.a. virtuele politiemannen en spyware.

We eindigen de avond in stijl met Dictator-disco, dus breng je eigen dictator-snor mee.

I’ve decided to switch to a less text-heavy, more visually oriented approach to blogging by starting a tumblr microblog. It will mostly feature reblogs and less writings of my own hand. I will not delete this blog, but I will probably not be very active here either, limiting new content to announcements etc. For my new tumblelog, go HERE.