John Brumley is an Assistant Arts Professor of Interactive Media Arts (IMA) at NYU Shanghai. His work focuses on the development of game development, bespoke and experimental toolkits.

In his talk, Professor Brumley will explore how game engines can be used as creative, experimental tools beyond traditional game development. Mainstream game engines carry built-in assumptions, reinforced through documentation and tutorials and naming conventions, about what can be produced using the engine, namely games and a particularly small subset of games. Artists and designers need to adopt a playful, lusory approach to explore expressive possibilities beyond those defaults. Professor Brumley practice centers on connecting game engines to outside systems: platforms, networks, physical spaces, and sound, where the game engine becomes like a collaborator whose biases frame and inform each project’s output. Through several projects, Professor Brumley will show his approach for experimenting with game engines. From reskinning Amazon’s interface as a navigable QR-code landscape, to building a collective virtual creature via audience participation, and developing directional speaker systems with flocking simulations for birdsong research.