Speaker: Christy Dena

Dr. Christy Dena is Director of Universe Creation 101, where she is currently developing a web-driven comedy-drama and web entertainment service. She works as an experience designer and writer on transmedia projects, and has consulted on multiple films, TV shows, alternate reality games and performance projects around the world. Christy wrote the first PhD on Transmedia Practice, co-wrote the Writer’s Guide to Making a Digital Living, and curated Transmedia Victoria.

What Christy will be doing at DIY DAYS

Spiral Worlds: The Art and Craft of Writing and Experience Design

In the 1950s and 60s, painters, dancers, sculptures, architects and writers played and created together. Now we’re seeing this emergence again, but with coders, designers, writers, musicians, video makers and so on, playing and creating together. In this session, I’ll share a part of my own journey in this space: how I work with both writing and experience design. I’ll draw on playwriting, screenwriting, interactive writing, and prose, along with interaction design, user experience design, and service design to illuminate the approach I use.

DIY DAYS asks Christy

What are you currently working on that you’re excited about?

I’m currently developing my own playful story, and inventing a web-navigation method to experience through. The project is a result of working on and researching transmedia projects over the last few years. I’m inventing a way of experiencing the web that combines the accessibility and emotional impact of audio drama with active navigation. This presents a lot of compelling design challenges (I wouldn’t have it any other way). AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS is a comedy drama about the zany obstacles we face when being ourselves.

What are some of your favorite sites and / or mobile apps and brief why?

I haven’t used a RSS reader or email subscription to a blog for…years! I now get all my reading through referrals, and so I therefore don’t frequent sites anymore. I guess the best next step then is to share some of my frequent go-to people for interesting links. @labfly for some great links to interactive theatre and general ever-friendly demeaner; @[…- I’ll send the link when I find it!] for links to a great range of interaction design articles; @ibogost and @ playstayxian for non-stop acerbic observations about gaming, and any person silly enough to believe their own legend a bit too much; as well as @lanceweiler for fringe tech emergences.

What are you currently watching, reading or playing?

I watch and read a variety of things for the sake of entertainment. Those are more serendipitous. But I also consciously delve into certain types of projects that are by certain people. For instance, I’ve been rewatching a lot of old comedy TV series from by Ken Levine, Dave Hackel and Mary Tyler Moore, because they combine comedy and profoundness with such grace; also gutsy stand ups like Bill Hicks and Louis C.K.; as well as the always funny Miranda Hart and Dylan Moran. I’ve been checking out HTML 5 projects, to see the variety of capabilities around; as well as playing mobile audio games and listening to BBC radio dramas. After all that, what I’d love to be doing is going to chamber music sessions and having drunken card games.