Catherine Coyle – Looking Outwards 8

Jane Friedoff’s full EYEO Presentation

This week I decided to write about Jane Friedhoff’s talk at the EYEO festival as I thought the summary of her work was interesting and I think game design is a really cool intersection of art and computing!

Jane Friedhoff studied sustainable development at Columbia University and later design and technology at The New School in New York. She seems still very young but has a lot of impressive experience with Google, the New York Times, and also founding the Code Liberation Foundation.

In her presentation, she talks about her ‘Riot Grrrl’ approach to making games. She describes these games as ‘power fantasies’ but not the usual ones found in games. Instead they revolve around making chaos and just running wild. Instead of making punk music, Friedhoff likes to make unpolished punk games. Some of the games she creates deal with tougher issues, but instead of being meant to educate the other side on why she is feeling this way, they are meant more for ‘catharsis’ and just expressing her feelings. For example in ‘Lost Wage Rampage’ two girls who find out that they’ve been paid significantly less than their male co-workers steal a car and rampage through a mall, taking back the money that they lost.

I think this is a perfect example of art in games as more than anything else, it is an effort to make you feel a certain way. Many games are more story based (which is still fun), but creating games based entirely around chaos and feelings is something new that I can admire.

As for her presentation style, she works with a standard PowerPoint presentation. However, she is great at using her voice to keep your attention and uses interesting visuals to help us follow along.

Altogether, I really admired learning about her and her work! You can read about her on her website here.