Got Game? Exploring the contexts of collaborative experience, social awareness, and gameplay January 18, 2007

Tina Blaine, Carnegie-Mellon University, Entertainment Technology Center

The pervasiveness of video games and interactive entertainment has become one of the most significant social phenomena of Western culture. We are witnessing the emergence and acceptance of breakthrough interfaces, controllers, and collaborative experiences with new models for gameplay. The convergence of video games, immersive environments, handheld electronics, musical interaction and experimental education give rise to new opportunities and definitions of “entertainment.” This Forum presentation will cover interactive entertainment research projects at Carnegie Mellon University, as well as exemplary commercial applications that further extend the boundaries and social impact of gaming.



Long inspired by global traditions and spontaneous music-making, Tina Blaine (also known by her stage name, “Bean”) teaches in Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, developing collective experiences that integrate game design, sonic discovery, and interactive media. Before joining CMU, she worked at Interval Research as a musical “interactivist,” leading a development team in the creation of the Jam-O-Drum, a collaborative audiovisual instrument now on permanent exhibit at the Experience Music Project in Seattle. Ms. Blaine’s subsequent research and projects with CMU students have been featured at SIGGRAPH's Emerging Technologies, Zeum's Youth Art and Technology Center in San Francisco, Erie Children’s Museum in Pennsylvania, Give Kids the World Resort in Orlando, and Ars Electronica's Museum of the Future in Linz, Austria.

Ms. Blaine embarked upon her exploration of musical interaction techniques in the 1980s, building electronic MIDI controller instruments and large-scale audience participation devices for live performance with the multimedia ensemble D’Cuckoo (which performed at PARC in 1993). She has written for numerous publications including Electronic Musician and the Journal for New Music Research, and is co-founder of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference. In 2005, she was honored for her inspiring, innovative work in the sciences by the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwestern Pennsylvania and the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA. She also was selected for Richard Saul Wurman’s 2002 publication, Who’s Really Who: 1000 Most Creative Individuals in the USA.

Official Website: http://www.parc.com/cms/get_article.php?id=616