Presented at Art History of Games Symposium at 9:15 am on February 6, 2010 in the High Museum of Art’s Rich Auditorium on the campus of the Woodruff Arts Center, in midtown Atlanta.Runtime: 44:41 minutesNathalie Pozzi is an architect whose projects cross the boundaries of art installation, architecture and landscape. Trained in Venice, Stockholm and Helsinki, Ms. Pozzi explores the classical design of space and light and the elegant use of materials, while also incorporating social and ethnographic elements into her work. Her projects expand the possibilities of architecture from building beautiful structures into a global and cultural act. Ms. Pozzi’s work includes contributions to the conceptual architectural studio Casagrande&Rintala, in projects like “Bird Cage” at Yokohama Triennale of Art and “Installation 2001” at the Florence International Bienniale of Contemporary Art. Recent projects range from the short film “Home”, presented at the 4th International Festival for Architecture in Video in Florence, to design and production consulting for internationally renowned artists including Mariko Mori and theater director Robert Wilson.Eric Zimmerman is a game designer, entrepreneur, author, and academic who has been working in the game industry for 15 years. His diverse activities have made him one of the New York Observer’s “Power Punks,” one of Interview magazine’s “30 To Watch,” one of International Design magazine’s “ID 40” influential designers and one of The Hollywood Reporter’s “Digital 50,” along with Stephen Spielberg and Will Wright. Zimmerman recently was honored with a VIP Award by the International Game Developers Association for his years of work in the game creation community.
He is an internationally recognized creative force, design scholar, and gadfly pundit on game design and game culture. For nine years, Zimmerman was the co-founder of Gamelab, a game development company based in New York City. Gamelab has won awards from the Independent Games Festival, Games for Change, ID Magazine, Art Directors Club and ARS Electronica.
Zimmerman lectures and publishes extensively on games and has taught courses in MIT’s comparative media studies program, New York University’s interactive telecommunications program, Parsons School of Design’s M.F.A. program in digital technologies program, and the School of Visual Arts’ Design as Author M.F.A. Program. He has exhibited game artworks at museums and galleries in the U.S. and abroad.Sixteen Tons is a game for four players designed for a gallery setting, created by architect Nathalie Pozzi and game designer Eric Zimmerman for this conference. Sixteen Tons provides a case study that illuminates some of the core issues of the Art History of Games conference. In what way can the project be considered art? What is Sixteen Tons "about?" The talk will mention precedents for the work within the history of both designers, outline some of the intentions behind the game, and describe the process of its creation
