Just down the street from the Staatsbibliothek
A group of street performers in black jumpsuits and white facemasks
Are using a full-body puppet made of yellow and orange styrofoam
To deliver a form of exquisite harassment upon a poor tourist
Just trying to determine what exactly it is
That sets a Starbucks in Berlin apart from one in Denver.
The puppet bobs and weaves, waves and thrusts its hips,
Beholden to a strange determinism at the end of long spindly poles
Wielded by the merry pranksters, their identities concealed
And thus rendered safe to act out their frustration
With this invasion of foreign currency, of foreign coffee,
Americans go home, they seem to be thinking,
While the puppet itself thinks I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s not me.
Storyteller, scholar, consultant. Loving son, husband and father. Kindhearted mischief-maker.
I'm the Director of the Games and Simulation program at Miami University in Ohio, where I am also an Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Arts' Emerging Technology in Business and Design department. I'm also the director of Miami's Worldbuilding and Narrative Design Research Laboratory (WNDRLab). I have a Master's in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a PhD in Media Arts and Practices from the University of Southern California.
In past lives I've been the lead Narrative Producer for Microsoft Studios and cofounder of its Narrative Design team, working on projects like Hololens, Quantum Break and new IP incubation; in a "future of media" think tank for Microsoft's CXO/CTO and its Chief Software Architect; the Creative Director for the University of Southern California's World Building Media Lab and the Technical Director, Creative Director and a Research Fellow for USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab; a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whittier College and director of its Whittier Other Worlds Laboratory (WOWLab); the Communications Director and a researcher for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a founding member of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT (now The Futures of Entertainment); a magazine editor; and a award-winning short film producer. more »
The opinions put forward in this blog are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.
