Starship Titanic 25th anniversary

Forget ChatGPT. A quarter of a century ago, a point-and-click CD-ROM adventure game from Douglas Adams featured a groundbreaking conversation engine called "SpookiTalk", which allowed you to chat with actual robots.

To celebrate the release of Starship Titanic 25 years ago this April, here's a panel discussion with members of the dev team which I hosted as part of my York U course Writing for Games and Interactive Media this time last year. 

March 2022 was the 25th anniversary of the game's original deadline whooshing by, and as I'd actually worked at The Digital Village back in the day, I figured I'd introduce my old colleagues to my first-year Media Arts students, none of whom were alive when the game was released, so we could all feel old together.

In preparation, I assigned for homework J.C. Herz's 1998 New York Times review, PushingUpRoses' 2014 YouTube review, and the following brief audio interview of Douglas Adams by Aram Sinnreich on the release of the new game: 

(CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0. Excerpt from original audio file "Aram Sinnreich interviews Douglas Adams," publication date 1998-04-21, at https://archive.org/details/ASDA042198. Photo by Robbie Stamp of Douglas Adams working on Starship Titanic in 1997 at The Digital Village, Camden, London.)

With the table set, the class welcomed our guests in from three timezones. Here are our contemporary portraits and job titles at TDV:

Clockwise from top left:

• Robbie Stamp (Chief Executive, The Digital Village)

• Emma Westecott (producer)

• Neil Richards (writer)

• Yoz Grahame (web technologist)

• Jason Williams (software engineer)

• Alison Humphrey (web producer)

Enjoy the chat!

For extra credit:

• Excerpts from Neil Richards's Starship Titanic: The Official Strategy Guide (1998), including a foreword by Douglas Adams, profiles of and postcards from the bots, and interviews on VelociText by Linda Watson, SpookiTalk by Jason Williams, and the game engine LifeBoat by Sean Sollé. (Plus an ad for exclusive merchandise, about which more below.) 
  
  
• Interview with Michael Bywater on writing Starship Titanic with Douglas and Neil, from Philipp Lenssen's Graphic Adventures (2010). 
  
  
• Your Lovely Special Inaugural Commemorative Heirloom First Class' In-Flight Magazine
  
  
• Starlight Travel Pre-Launch Passenger Prospectus
  
  
• Star-Struct Inc. Construction Intranet: RESTRICTED ACCESS
  
  
• The 1998 Official Website
  

The website is miraculously still live, but the Starship Titanic online shop, which I ran from 1998 to 2000, alas, is not. 

Here's the SuperGalactic Traveller Class In-Flight Bag, sold IRL alongside other less-bonkers merch (like t-shirts, posters and an embroidered jean jacket):

The bag came packed with everything you could need as a SuperGalactic Traveller Class (steerage) passenger, including towel, slippers, sleep mask, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, toothbrush, sewing kit, airsickness bag, note pad, ballpoint pen, and shoeshine sponge, all emblazoned with the Starship Titanic logo.

Michael Bywater wrote the bag's immortal contents card (click to enlarge):

Starship Titanic is available on Steam for Windows and Mac. (The anniversary of the Mac version's 1999 release won't be for another year – something Douglas, a notorious Apple fan, would never have lived down if he hadn't sadly passed away just two years later.)

Reflections on Shadowpox: The Cytokine Storm at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation Youth Centre

Less than a year before the pandemic, on 12 March 2019, peer health interns Zanele Melapi and Sibulele Bontshi reflected on their participation in the "citizen science fiction" storyworld Shadowpox: The Cytokine Storm, at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation Youth Centre, Masiphumelele, South Africa. 

 

Transcripts

AMR AR Game Jam!

This week, the students of my course FILM 1123: Writing for Games and Interactive Media in York's Department of Cinema and Media Arts held a game jam to explore the concept of procedural rhetoric by brainstorming augmented reality (AR) games that could spread the word about the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

The event was kicked off by special guest Dr. Steven J. Hoffman, Director of the Global Strategy Lab, Professor of Global Health, Law, and Political Science at York University, and Scientific Director at the CIHR Institute of Population & Public Health. Huge thanks to Steven for joining us! 

One of the students in the course, Man Yiu Kingsley Wong, is also a talented photographer, and took the initiative to document the afternoon, which was particularly poignant as it was the only day of the whole term in which we gathered on campus in person.

Three-quarters of the class met outside York's Centre for Film and Theatre, right across the street from the Global Strategy Lab in the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research...

...while intrepid teaching assistants Lokchi Lam and Kurt Walker made sure the other quarter of us could participate via Zoom... 

Media Arts Futures: In Conversation with Evan Narcisse

Update, March 17:

Here's the webinar recording!

Original post, March 1:

Please join us on March 10 for a free webinar with pop culture polymath Evan Narcisse, writer of comics, video games and animation, which I'll be hosting as part of my course Writing for Games and Interactive Media.

Evan Narcisse works as a writer and narrative design consultant in video games, comic books, and TV, often focusing on the intersection of blackness and pop culture. As a journalist and critic, he’s written for The Atlantic, Time Magazine, Kotaku, and The New York Times, in addition to teaching game journalism at New York University and appearances as an expert guest on CNN and NPR. He’s also the author of the Rise of the Black Panther graphic novel and a contributor to Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Redfall, and Marvel’s Avengers. A native New Yorker, he now lives in Austin, Texas.

Presented by the Department of Cinema and Media Arts.

March 10, 2022
11:30am EST

Register HERE

Co-Creating Vaccine Confidence: An Anishinabe Theatre-Based Approach

I'm thrilled to be able to announce a new two-year project on which I'm a co-investigator, alongside the talented and lovely Joahnna Berti, Bruce Naokwegijig and Maurianne Reade, reigniting the Shadowpox collaboration we began at Debajehmujig Storytellers in 2018!

The new project is titled Co-Creating Vaccine Confidence: An Anishinabe Theatre-Based Approach to Strengthen Indigenous Youth and Young Adult Vaccination Support, and it's funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research under the COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence - Indigenous Health Research Operating Grant.

The team has grown to include more great folks from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, among others, and is led by principal investigators Marion Maar, Maurianne Reade, and Mariette Sutherland. (Yes, Marion, Maurianne and Mariette – a trio of names tailor-made for a musical theatre number!)

We're now working on a 60-minute presentation for the Chiefs of Ontario Health Forum on February 23rd.

Here's some of the press the announcement has received.

Press Release

Northern Ontario School of Medicine: NOSM researchers study Indigenous vaccine confidence in Northern Ontario

Radio

CBC Morning North: NOSM researchers trying to grow COVID-19 vaccine uptake among Indigenous youth

CBC Up North: Debajehmujig Storytellers and NOSM collaborate to fight vaccine hesitancy

Video

CTV News Northern Ontario: NOSM researchers have launched a new study that they're hoping will boost vaccine confidence among Indigenous youth

Articles

CBC Sudbury: Indigenous vaccine confidence being studied in northeastern Ontario

CTV News Northern Ontario: New study targets vaccine confidence for Indigenous youth

Sudbury Star: NOSM researchers study Indigenous vaccine confidence in North

Shadowpox Links for Immune Nations Panel

I thought I'd share some links for anyone interested in following up on some of my references in the <Immune Nations> panel discussion, "Ensuring Equitable Access: ​Life-Saving Vaccines during COVID-19 and Beyond." 

• The Covid-update online game Shadowpox: #StayHome Edition
  
  
• The gallery installation game Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic
  
  
• York University articles about the online game and the gallery installation
  
  
• Imaginations journal articles about the Shadowpox project
  
  
• Shadowpox: The Cytokine Storm "citizen science fiction" workshops…
  …at Debajehmujig Storytellers, Wiikwemkoong
  …at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation Youth Centre, Masiphumelele
  …at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London

Update: A recording of the webinar has just been released by the McMaster Museum of Art. The short sections where I speak about Shadowpox and the role of art in changing perspectives are cued up below.

Citizen science fiction, Captain America, and the X-Men:

"Who is my neighbour?" – The teaching stories of Spider-Man and Black Panther:

Panel: Ensuring Equitable Access: ​Life-Saving Vaccines during COVID-19 and Beyond

This week I'll be joining a fabulous group of speakers on the first of a series of free, virtual panel discussions this fall, as part of the <Immune Nations> exhibition at the McMaster Museum of Art. Please join us!

Ensuring Equitable Access: ​Life-Saving Vaccines during COVID-19 and Beyond 

​A panel exploring the global deployment and lack of access to life-saving vaccines.

Thursday, October 14, 2021
12:00—1:30pm ET 

Update: Watch the webinar recording here!

Moderator:
​Steven Hoffman, Director, Global Strategy Lab, York University 

Panelists:
Annemarie Hou, Executive Director, UN Office for Partnerships
Alison Humphrey, Vanier Scholar, York University
Lauren Paremoer, Senior Lecturer, University of Cape Town
John-Arne Røttingen, Norway’s Ambassador for Global Health

Please see the webinar registration page for full bios, and check out what's coming up next in the series: 

November 25 – Research-Creation and Global Crisis: Interdisciplinarity, Creativity, and Collaboration

December 9 – Vaccine Confidence, Fear, and Misinformation in an Age of COVID ​

Tour the New Immune Nations Exhibition

The McMaster Museum of Art has posted a virtual walkthrough of the new <Immune Nations> exhibition, on now through December 12th. Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic features in the final segment!

Immune Nations at the McMaster Museum of Art

Well, a little virus slowed us down, but <Immune Nations> will finally have its North American premiere this fall at the McMaster Museum of Art! 

Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic (2017) will be installed for an in-person experience in the gallery, while Shadowpox: #StayHome Edition (2020) is our online adaptation of the game, created in the first months of the pandemic. See the Shadowpox page on the <Immune Nations> site for our reflections on remounting the exhibition in the era of Covid-19. 

I'll also be joining one of the virtual panel discussions during the run of the show – details to be shared soon.

Please see the McMaster Museum of Art for the full announcement:

https://museum.mcmaster.ca/immune-nations-exhibition-opens-september-2021/

<Immune Nations>, an evidence-based exhibition about the constructive role that art can play in public discourse around life-saving vaccines, will open at the McMaster Museum of Art on September 2!

Debajehmujig Storytellers reflect on a pre-pandemic Shadowpox: The Cytokine Storm

Daniel Recollet Mejaki, Samantha Brennan and Bruce Naokwegijig reflect on the December 2018 workshop Shadowpox: The Cytokine Storm, at Debajehmujig Storytellers, Manitoulin Island, 26 October 2020.

 

 

Shadowpox: Citizen Science Fiction at ISEA Montreal

The artist's capsule "Shadowpox: Citizen Science Fiction" will be part of the exhibition “Life, A Sensorium,” presented by Sensorium: Centre for Digital Art and Technology as part of the 26th International Symposium of Electronic Art, (e)Montreal, October 13-18.  

I'll be presenting Shadowpox alongside the lovely and talented David Han (Friend Generator) and Michaela Pnacekova (Symphony of Noise VR), in Life: A Sensorium – Artists' Talk on Art & Video Games on October 13th. Please join us!