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writing samples tabletop games digital games books education |
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Anna is available for speaking engagements in the American Midwest and remote speaking engagements anywhere else. Below are slides and topics from some of her recent talks. |
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Forward Isn't Progress: Our games, digital and tabletop alike, are structured around a linear model of progress: As time passes, we get stronger, gain power and control over the game world. Not only is this model of history rooted in colonialism, but it fails to reflect the non-linear ways the body experiences trauma, queerness and disability. How can we deconstruct the progress narrative and find ways of representing more complicated, fractured histories in play? Slide descriptions: Top: Talk title over a photo of Katerina Kamprani's The Uncomfortable Watering Can, a watering can whose spout is reversed towards its bucket. Middle: Map of Nintendo's Super Metroid with some areas highlighted in magenta as part of a demonstration on how power progression and narrative progression intertwine. Bottom: Illustration from my game Tavern at the End of the World – of a cat napping on a counter beside a molotov cocktail – with the text "embrace failure" overlaid. |
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Dream Furiously: Generative AI has flooded the internet with art that is technically sound, devoid of nuance, and absent an artist's hand or sensibilities. In other words, a perfect tool for fascism. How are artists to push back against the tide? By making aggressively bad, horny, unpalatable art. Slide descriptions: Top: Talk title superimposed over an image of Marjory the trash heap oracle from Fraggle Rock. Middle: AI-generated image of a 1950s Aryan-style family posed in front of an American flag, their fingers melting into each other. A chapter heading reads, "AI art is fascist art." Bottom: A "What is Post-Slop art?" pinboard with three tenets, each with attached pull-quotes from essays, manifestoes, and the Sonic "I want shorter games with worse graphics" meme. |
