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Author: Alan Hook

Alan Hook is a Lecturer in Interactive Media and a Researcher in New Media and Play at Ulster University. Alan teaches Games Studies and Interactive Media within the School of Media Film and Journalism. His teaching and research focusing on play as a form of interaction and how participation in games and transmedia texts effects and shapes behaviour both in and outside of the game.

Alan is currently studying towards a PhD in Design at Lancaster University in Imagination Lancaster, the open and exploratory design-led research centre with Prof Paul Coulton (Chair of Speculative and Game Design).

GoatMan (2016) – Soul

Published by Alan Hook on June 12, 2017

Thwaites, T. (2016) GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human New York: Princeton Architectural Press Goat Man is a design project, and accompanying book by designer Thomas Thwaites. The project gained funding from the Wellcome Trust and uses design as a process to bring the designer closer to another species. The project is broken down into sections in the published book; Soul, Mind, Body, Guts, and Goat Life. As an important piece of speculative design on becoming animal this will be a recurring comparison  for the study. I will focus on the chapter discussing the Soul in this post but will…

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Birdly (2015)

Published by Alan Hook on June 9, 2017

Birdly was first conceived by media artist Max Rheiner as a Design Research project at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) in Switzerland in 2013 and was developed into a product developed alongside the SOMNIACS spin out company. Birdly creates an immersive experience of being a bird flying through the city. The project consists of a bespoke controller for a virtual environment where the players body is augmented using a body controller. The player is strapped in and flaps their arms to control the wings of the bird. The immersion is enhanced with the use of a fan which blasts…

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Second Livestock (2012)

Published by Alan Hook on March 13, 2017

Austin Stewart’s piece Second Livestock is a speculative design project which presents a new approach to farming for the digital age. The project proposes that battery farming could use immersive technology to increase animal welfare and productivity by immersing chickens in a simulated farm environment, while stacking them high in cylindrical urban farming units. “The aesthetics of the presentation are intentionally poor—mirroring the presentations frequently given at technology conferences and tradeshows. The live demonstration of the enclosure does not involve a chicken, rather a volunteer from the audience straps on a human-scale VR headset and places their hands on a treadmill.…

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GDC: The Inter-Species Game Design Challenge 2008

Published by Alan Hook on March 21, 2016

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/420/The-Game-Design-Challenge-The  In 2008, at the Game Development Conference, Eric Zimmerman presented the game design challenge ‘The Inter-Species Game Design Challenge’. Each year, the challenge pits famous designers against each other on a themed challenge to spur creative response and reflect on new types of game play. The challenge sits on the design track of the conference and has become a staple attraction of the track. The challenge in 2008 saw Brenda Brathwaite (Wizardry), Steve Meretzky (Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy) and Alexey Pajitnov (Tetris) compete to design 3 potential games which promoted interspecies play. Alexey Pajitnov’s designed Dolphin Ride, Steve Meretzky’s designed TrayStation and Brenda…

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