IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2020 - 12

Society News

Figure 1. One of the "immersive experience"
spaces at the CCAM: this features Cecilia Suhr's "I,
You, We" exhibit.

innovations in games and digital media and this
year's conference lived up to this goal in a way
that expanded the horizons of the conventional
conference experience for delegates.
A great deal of credit is due to the members of
the organizing committee who took the brave
decision to break new ground in providing
immersive experiences for conference participants. This new approach was very successful
and received many positive comments and praise
from presenters, keynotes, and other conference
attendees.
In particular, Justin Berry, the conference
chair, put in many hours of hard work to bring all
aspects of the event together, delivering a unique
experience to conference delegates. A big thank
you to Justin from IEEE Consumer Electronics
Society (CESoc). Thanks also to Elena Bertozzi,
Randall Rhodes, and Johannes DeYoung for their
roles on the organizing committee. Now, a whirlwind tour of the event to give our readers a sense
of the immersive experiences of IEEE GEM 2019.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Angela Washko is an artist, writer, and facilitator devoted to creating new forums for discussions of feminism in spaces frequently hostile
toward it. Since 2012, Washko has operated the
Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral
Awareness in World of Warcraft, an ongoing intervention inside the most popular online role-playing game of all time.
Washko's talk highlighted the role of games
in contemporary culture and revealed how

online communities shape the discourse around
identity, gender, and sexuality. Her work walks a
fine line between humor and serious matters
such as harassment and sexual bullying tackling
these with sensitivity and diplomacy. Her keynote opened a discourse on the nature of computer gaming, namely that the technology
provides more than entertainment having
evolved into delivery mechanism for meaningful
experiences which shape our understanding of
the world. As games evolve into a mainstream
form of culture they deserve the rigorous interrogation that Washko's work provides.
Peter Burr is a digital and new media artist
from Brooklyn, NY, USA. His practice often
engages with tools of the video game industry in
the form of immersive cinematic artworks. These
pieces have been presented internationally by
institutions including MoMA PS1, New York; and
The Barbican Centre, London. Burr has in recent
years devoted himself to exploring the concept of
an endlessly mutating labyrinth and his keynote
provided insights and artistic inspirations, focusing on his latest works, including Dirtscraper.
Projected onto the walls of a small, black
room, "Dirtscraper" looks to be just a very detailed
experimental film in the aesthetic of Commodore
64. But, with the help of a podium in the center of
the room, it allows the audience to control certain
levels and aspects of the game progression. Story
mode screens add important points of narration
and dialogue to progress the narrative.
"Dirtscraper speaks about the ways (we as a)
society use gaming as an extension for the ways
that we take control and power over societies
through different mechanisms (such as) commerce, city planning . . . participants are allowed
to navigate through this world going all the way
from subterranean to the top of the narrative,
but they don't actually have control."
Alex Thayer is the head of Research at Amazon Search. His Ph.D. in human-centered design
and engineering is from the University of Washington, and he has a complimentary degree in
communication and art history. Alex's research
focuses on the future of mixed reality, and other
topic areas at the intersection of people, practice, experience, and technology.
His keynote explored interesting relationships between the real-word and mixed reality

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IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - January/February 2020

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