Hi! I’m Laine, and I'm a computer and video game historian at New York University. You can read more about what I do in my bio. As COVID-19 spreads across the United States, many of us have been experiencing greater of hours at home in an effort to participate in social distancing. In light of that, I thought I could help share a little distraction, entertainment, and education with folks interested in my areas of research. I have a deep backlog of talks I’ve given over the years, so I gathered some up to create a little lecture series. All these talks are scholarly but accessible to a general audience. I even think home-schooled high schoolers with an interest in these topics would be able to enjoy these talks. The first two on my schedule are especially accessible – – they were written several years ago for a series of public history nights at a bar in Brooklyn. With the exception of my talk on April 10, all talks will broadcast at 1 PM EST on my Twitch stream: www.twitch.tv/sierra_offline. My talk on April 10 will be hosted by the ITP program at NYU, presumably on Zoom. Follow me on Twitter for updates. Every talk will be followed by Q/A with the chat! Please feel free to share this broadly. I’ll see you on Twitch. Schedule At A Glance March 27: Who Invented the First Video Game? Who Cares, Nerd. April 3: How the Computer Became Personal April 10: Prehistories of the Personal April 17: TAKING THE WEEK OFF April 24: “The Computerized Home of Tomorrow” May 1: Computer Bodies May 8: Divide and Conquer: Game Engines and the Division of Labor May 15: On Footwork: Finding the “Local” in Video Game History Detailed ScheduleMarch 27: Who Invented the First Video Game? Who Cares, Nerd.
A short 15 minute talk offering a quick history of multiple “firsts” in the history of games. Intended for an audience with no in-depth knowledge of game history. April 3: How the Computer Became Personal A short 15 minute talk about how we might rethink but a history of the “personal” in personal computing could look like. Intended for an audience with no in-depth knowledge of the history of computing. April 10: Prehistories of the Personal A 30 - 40 minute talk covering four historical dynamics in the computing industry that converged in the development of the first personal computers: data processing and interaction, miniaturization, individual ownership, and profit-seeking. A more explicitly scholarly talk based on the first chapter of my current book project, How the Computer Became Personal: The Apple II and the Rise of US Microcomputing. This is a guest lecturer I’d originally agreed to do for the ITP program at NYU, and will instead be presenting online. April 24: “The Computerized Home of Tomorrow”: Xanadu and the American Fantasy of Privitized Living A 20 minute talk about the Xanadu homes, a set of experimental “computerized” homes from the 1980s. Originally given at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference a few years ago. May 1: Computer Bodies A 15 – 20 minute talk about the early history of ergonomics and personal computing; an account of computing history told as a history of computer-related bodily pain. Originally written for a public series focused on the intersection of art and technology. May 8: Divide and Conquer: Game Engines and the Division of Labor A 40 minute talk analyzing the development history and application of one of the earliest graphical game engines, Sierra’s adventure game interpreter. This talk makes the argument that the engine had a dramatic impact on both puzzle design and the division of labor at the company, in ways that are still visible in the contemporary game industry. May 15: On Footwork: Finding the “Local” in Video Game History Video game history is usually told as a tale of nations. But what details do we miss in presuming that the video game industry operated consistently at a nationwide scale? This talk surveys my work doing archival research and oral history in the hyper local context of Sierra On-Line’s rural headquarters in Oakhurst California during the 1980s and 90s. |
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