Lissa Holloway-Attaway
School of Informatics
The GAME Research Group (Games, Arts, Media, Experience Research Group) holds game-based research as a center connecting point of interest among our faculty, but we recognize that games are complex media objects with multiple entry points for study, ranging from technical to aesthetic expressions.
As such our work is focused on research within the socio-cultural contexts for development and studying its media and cultural traditions as well as future-oriented impact. Our research and our researchers have a strong transdiciplinary focus, crossing multiple academic subjects within Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Computer Science.
The primary subject areas for research include Media Arts, Aesthetics, and Narration, Informatics, Music and Cognitive Science.
Much of our work in games is focused on creating sustainable futures in the games industry by understanding game development as a unique, but also far-reaching and influential area for supporting contemporary media/game designers and for understanding users and their differing experiences. We support careful analysis around issues for inclusion and diversity (gender, ability, social organizations and co-design partnerships with cultural stakeholders, for example).
Many of our projects and our published research have, for example, overtly focused on game development in changing industrial/academic contexts (internationally and nationally), within cultural heritage, in response to the global pandemic and its impacts, to climate change, for understanding agricultural resources for future management, and for drawing connections to other fields impacted by the increasing use of interactive digital tools (in theatre, journalism and fashion, for example).
Interests in sustaining and researching under-explored user groups, including children and youth, is strong in our group across multiple projects as we work to build a future-oriented framework for technical and cultural development.
Our transdisciplinary interests and diverse subject areas position us strongly to connect to partners in the games industry and education, as well as to regional, national and international development contexts. Connections to the cultural sector, including theatre, art, music, museums, schools, are prominent in our projects and this is a strong research focus area we continue to grow.
We also work within other civil organizations (health and emergency services, for example) to illustrate and support the far-reaching areas in which games may be integrated and analyzed. We are happy to work with external organizations and partners, and we encourage people to contact us with ideas for collaboration that we can help develop.
The GAME Research Group is formerly known as MTEC (Media, Technology and Culture).