DMS Student Showcase 2021

DMS 448 Games, Gender & Culture

DMS 448: Games, Gender And Culture provides a comprehensive investigation of the emerging field of Games Studies, the critical analysis of games and interactive environments made possible by the computer. We will address different theoretical perspectivesthat view games and gaming as historical, social, cultural. aesthetic, technical, performative, and cognitive phenomenon.

Examines how video games encompass an increasingly diverse set of practices, populations, and locations from fantasy football to multi-player medieval fantasy, from simulations of real life to alternate realities, from fanatics to activists, from nightclubs to competitive arenas to public streets to the classroom; from consoles to mobile phones, to large screen projections. In particular, we critically examine how games and gaming are culturally constructed as gendered objects and activities that are exclusive for many along lines of gender, sexuality, race, disability, and class. Class discussions often highlight identity, community, politics, power, culture, and social justice in games. Students complete course-long research and game projects.

Andres Espinoza

Team siren

Team Siren Image.

Twine game designed by Andres Espinoza

Team Siren HTML (Play Here)

Elle Regan

the basement

The basement image.

A short Twine game with custom visuals that tells a story of dealing and living with traumatic memories of abusive relationships. Content warning: this game represents experiences of fear, trauma, and pain.

The Basement HTML (Play Here)

Miriam monroe

Buggy's Day

Buggy's Day Image.

Buggy’s Day is a game where you play as Buggy, a seemingly happy and normal little girl, that’s also half Ladybug and half Rabbit! She lives in a forest with her mother and her many friends. Dive into a peek of what her home and daily life are like -with some added mysteries!

(Personal Note: Buggy’s Day is my first game using RPGMaker VX Ace. I used downloadable free assets, assets included in the tool, and my own artwork. I wanted to make a cute, sweet, and fun RPG with a black girl protag since you never really see them in games. I tried including bits of my own Haitian background in it too. It’s not finished so it’s veryshort, but I still hope you enjoy it!)

Buggy's Day (Play Here)

Rick Li

Creative project

A sci-fi war story gamemade with RPG Maker MZ. It will use atime progress fighting system, where characters will be able to perform actionswhen their energy bars are filled. There will be cutscenes, mission levels, places to explore and wander around, with interactable objects and secrets such as hidden rooms, deciphering codes, and following signs. In the year 2139, after the human race expanded beyond the solar system and inhabited other planets, amilitary group went rogue and started terrorizing civilizations throughout the galaxy. After two long years the war was coming to an end in favor of the good side, pushing the rogue militaryfar into the outer parts of the galaxy. You play as the determined soldier Quinn, a new addition to the teamTask Force 4, an elite squad of individuals with unique abilities and traits. It’sup to the teamto deliver the final blow, and hopefully bring an end to the war.

Creative Project (Play Here)

2021 DMS Courses

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DMS 448 Games, Gender & Culture
5/12/21
DMS 448: Games, Gender And Culture provides a comprehensive investigation of the emerging field of Games Studies, the critical analysis of games and interactive environments made possible by the computer. We will address different theoretical perspectivesthat view games and gaming as historical, social, cultural. aesthetic, technical, performative, and cognitive phenomenon.
DMS 103 Basic Video (Section 1)
5/14/21
Basic Video is a beginner level production class on the uses of digital video, moving image, and media as a medium of artistic expression and communication. There is a mixture of history, theory, artistic practice, technique, analysis, and there is a distinctive focus on learning while making.
DMS 480 Social Media & Networks (Section 1)
5/21/21
In this online course, we will learn about, critique, and create social media and networks theory. Through media theory and case studies, we will analyze social media and networks; through online discussion, we will develop our ideas; and finally, through creation we will implement our learning into action. By the end of the course, you will have a better understanding and will be able to critically read, analyze, and write about social media from a variety of perspectives. Along with rigorous reading and writing, students will engage through creative making and collective presentations. In doing so, we adhere to learning through creating.
DMS 598 Project Supervision
5/12/21
Graduate Student Project Supervision taught by Margaret Rhee
DMS 441 Advanced Video Production
5/14/21
This production course is designed to build on and further students’ conceptual and technical skills in video production. Through a combination of in-class workshops and exercises, assigned projects, and close attention to visual, creative motion picture ideation, students will strive to produce thoughtful, personally meaningful, technically proficient videos.
DMS 474 Media Theories and Approaches
5/15/21
Media theory investigates the technoculturaloperation of media, including media technologies and social practices. The basic question media theory must ask is “what is media?” If something is identified as media, is it always media or only under certain circumstances? For example, paint is a mediumwhen used for a painting, but what about on a wall or in a can? Air is a medium for sound and music, but what about when the world is silent? Fiber optic cables, wifi signals, and the internal operations of a computer delivering a film on a laptop are media, but so is the film. How do they relate? Conversely, what is not media?
DMS 342 Intermediate Documentary Workshop
5/13/21
Intermediate Documentary is an intensive workshop in nonfiction film production, with an emphasis on both hands-on practice of documentary filmmaking and in-depth study of the art of nonfiction filmmaking. Production projects helpedstudents develop conceptual and technicalproficiency, including knowledge of the development, production, and post production ofnonfiction films. Readings, writing assignments, and class presentations will deepen students’understanding of nonfiction filmmaking and storytelling.
DMS 213 Immigration & Film (Section 2)
5/21/21
This course offers an introduction to South Korean drama and cinema with attention to
Korean culture and history, TV/cinema/visual cultural analysis, and within the contexts Korean cultural global reach also understood as Hallyu or the Korean Wave. Students will study South Korean drama and film through thematics such as historical development, aesthetics, genre, auteur theory, stardom, subtitling, and the politics of distribution.
DMS 103 Basic Video (Section 2)
5/12/21
This course provides an introduction to the technical and aesthetic practice of video production and post-production, with a critical eye to both form and content. Through lectures, readings, exercises, and projects, as well as screenings of historical and contemporary film and video work, students will gain an understanding of film and video language and explore conceptual strategies for the development of creative approaches to digital video making.
DMS 302 Experimental Moving Image
5/14/21
“Experimental Moving Image” is an intermediate level undergraduate production class introducing students to alternative approaches to the moving image, from abstraction and collage, personal documentary and hybrid narratives, to stop-motion and video installation, across single and multiple screens.
DMS 201 Green Media
5/11/21
This course analyzes fictional and documentary media that investigate our relationship to nature: climate change, pollution, environmental justice, wildlife extinction. The course interprets the word media broadly to include film, games, social media, media-art, big data visualization, simulation and sensing. It examines the consciousness-raising power of film, media and journalism; traces the ecological impact of our obsession with the latest media device; and ponders the relationship between our feelings about our changing planet (denial, engagement, optimism, hopelessness) and our actions.
DMS 341: Intermediate Video
5/13/21
This course took place in the fall of 2020 and was an intensive workshop in fiction film production, with an emphasis on both hands-on practice of fiction filmmaking and in-depth study of the art of fiction filmmaking.
DMS 418/518 Landscape Projections
8/18/22
“Landscape Projections” is an advanced special topics course exploring landscape as a medium, predominantly through the lens of time-based media. “Projections” implies cinematic presentation, but we expand this idea of projection (from Latin projectio(n-), from proicere ‘throw forth’), exploring ideas around forecasts, mappings, visions, and transmission, as we consider a wide range of artists and filmmakers re-envisioning both the natural and manufactured landscape through cinematic geographies and spatial practices.
DMS 534 Media Archaeology
5/11/21
In this theory/practice seminar, students will interrogate the strain of scholarly and artistic practices concerned with the cultural and material histories of media technology known as media archaeology.
DMS 462/562 Game Design
5/12/21
DMS 462 is a production course that allows students to explore the fabulous and sometimes frightening world of Game Design. Games are all around us in modern culture, ranging from video games to board and card games to sports to politics (Game of Thrones, anyone?) and beyond.
DMS 606 Sound and Space
5/11/21
In this course, students interested in learning more about music and sound, and sound’s relationship with and existence ins pace, have been experimenting with creating virtual spaces. (This was particularly germane since the class took place over Zoom, an entirely virtual space.) We have analyzed how sound behaves in real spaces, both natural and human-built, with the goal of understanding how these spaces influence sound, and human perception.
DMS 435/535 Scriptwriting
5/15/21
In this production workshop students concentrate on writing and editing script elements for all kinds of media including film, video, game, installation, AR, VR location- or web-based projects. The course explores traditional and experimental methods for generating and structuring text for any genre of fictional, documentary or hybrid work. Scripts include original writing, interviews, collaged or found fragments - which may be performed, heard or displayed in the final piece.