Cindy Poremba
Faculty of Arts & Science
Cindy Poremba is a digital media researcher, gamemaker and curator. They are an Associate Professor (Digital Futures) at OCAD University (Tkaronto/Toronto, CA) and Co-Director of OCAD’s game:play Lab.
Dr. Poremba has presented internationally at conferences, festivals and invited lectures, on topics relating to game art and curation, capture in postmedia practices, and interactive documentary. Their research and critical writing has been published in journals such as Eludamos, Loading, Game Studies and Games & Culture, as well as edited collections, art catalogs and magazines. Cindy has held positions on award juries including the Independent Game Festival (Design and Nuovo), served as Co-Chair for the IndieCade, and is a past Board member of the Hand Eye Society. They currently sit on the Board of the Game Arts International Network (GAIN).
Cindy also organizes non-traditional exhibitions as an independent curator, including Joue le jeu/Play Along (FR), and XYZ: Alternative Voices in Game Design (US). Their award-winning game and “New Arcade” work, independently and as a member of the kokoromi experimental videogame collective, has been featured in both international game and digital art exhibitions.
Going Deep: Hybrid Capture in Documentary
The Interactive Documentary in Canada
Published: November 21st 2024
Ansel and the (T/M)aking of Amateur Game Photography
Screen Images. In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast
Published: November 21st 2023
La remédiation des images de cinéma dans le jeu vidéo
Published: November 21st 2023
A Visual Programming Interface for Experimenting with Volumetric Video
2022 IEEE Games, Entertainment, Media Conference, GEM 2022
Published: November 21st 2022
Bodies in Play zine
DIY Methods 2022 Conference Proceedings
Published: November 21st 2022
WING COMMANDER III: HEART OF THE TIGER (1994)
Fifty Key Video Games
Published: November 21st 2022
Any one, anyWare: Perceiving sentience and embodiment in a distributed sculpture
Published: November 21st 2020
anyWare is an Internet of Things distributed sculpture comprised of three identical objects that are individually connected to the Internet and physically mirror each other. The anyWare sculptures are art objects that telematically connect three different locations in the world and enable distal physical communication. The objects simultaneously respond to people who interact directly with them, as well as allow them to interact with each other through the sculptures. Structuring these interactions are a number of games and puzzles that people may play or solve, either individually or collaboratively. The objects transform in the experience of exploration, and in so doing reveal different levels of interactivity and aesthetic experience. The mediated sentience of the anyWare sculptures through non-verbal, playful interaction provides a model for envisioning networked communication that circumvents age, cultural, and linguistic differences.
From Dead-end to Cutting Edge: Using FMV Design Patterns to Jumpstart a Video Revival
Published: November 21st 2020
Ten years of digital futures: An oral history, part 1
Virtual Creativity
Published: November 21st 2020
Ten years of digital futures: An oral history, part 2
Virtual Creativity
Published: November 21st 2020
Ten years of digital futures: An oral history, part 3
Virtual Creativity
Published: November 21st 2020
Ten years of digital futures: An oral history, part 4
Virtual Creativity
Published: November 21st 2020
Ten years of digital futures: An oral history, part 5
Virtual Creativity
Published: November 21st 2020
Ten years of digital futures: An oral history, part 6
Virtual Creativity
Published: November 21st 2020
VVV: Volumetric video in videogames
Published: November 21st 2020
VVV: Volumetric Video in Videogames is a research-creation project aiming to advance experimental development using volumetric video (a computational fusion between captured depth data and video images) in expressive videogames by drawing upon successful patterns from early game design practices foregrounding captured media. Such exploration is essential given the complexity of hybrid capture images. This ongoing project presents new ways of understanding captured media within highly interactive postmedia forms. fullmotion video)/interactive cinema games, incorporating both historic and more recent examples in this niche genre. Using the HACS (Historical-Analytical Comparative System) system [1], common and potentially useable patterns were identified, evaluated, and later translated from formal pattern language into more accessible descriptions for use in design ideation and/or troubleshooting (see Fig 1 for examples).
Performative inquiry and the sublime in Escape from Woomera
Games and Culture
Published: November 21st 2013
Discourse Engines for Art Mods
Published: November 21st 2010
This paper presents a genealogy of "art mod" (artistic videogame modification) definitions and frameworks. Such frameworks serve, either intentionally or unintentionally, to establish modding within a tradition of analysis and critique: whether participatory design, alternative media, folk art, and/or fine art. By situating the definition and history of art mods within a particular discourse, researchers construct the ground from which to make arguments towards organizing the reception and critique of these works. Such arguments include whether mods in general (and art mods in particular) are inherently political or banal (even boring), whether these works speak back at all to games themselves (and whether they should), whether these works are powerful and disruptive; or compromised (by virtue of their parasitic position), and as a result marginal. A genealogy of art mod frameworks highlights the boundary politics of the critique of art mods, and the problem of presenting transparent interpretive lenses in an interdisciplinary field such as game studies.
Game art on a dematerialized web
Magazine électronique du CIAC / Centre International d'Art Contemporain
Published: November 21st 2009
JFK reloaded: Documentary framing and the simulated document
Published: November 21st 2009
Can games get real? A closer look at 'documentary' digital games
Computer Games as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: Games Without Frontiers - War Without Tears
Published: November 21st 2008
“Play belongs to Everybody”: An interview with the Ludica Collective
Published: November 21st 2008
ARTcade: A Canadian Game Studies Association Symposium Vignette
Published: November 21st 2007
Critical potential on the brink of the magic circle
3rd Digital Games Research Association International Conference: "Situated Play", DiGRA 2007
Published: November 21st 2007
Play with me: Exploring the autobiographical through digital games
3rd Digital Games Research Association International Conference: "Situated Play", DiGRA 2007
Published: November 21st 2007
Point and shoot: Remediating photography in gamespace
Games and Culture
Published: November 21st 2007
Patches of peace: Tiny signs of agency in digital games.
Published: November 21st 2003
One of the more interesting and distinct aspects of digital games is the proliferation of player produced artifacts. The reworking of original game materials is an integral part of game culture that cannot be ignored in the study of these games. This paper explores player authorship in digital games through the rhetoric of select peace-themed game modifications.
Remaking each other’s dreams: Player authors in digital games
Published: November 21st 2003
One of the more interesting and distinct aspects of the digital game genre is the proliferation of player-produced content and artifacts. The reworking of original game materials is an integral part of game culture that can not be ignored in the study of these games. This paper explores playerproduction as a mode of authorship reflecting the agency of the game player.
This is Research; Poremba: VVV: Volumetric Video in Videogames
VVV: Volumetric Video in Videogames is a practice-based research inquiry that uses full motion video (FMV) videogame design patterns to scaffold the design of new games using volumetric (spatial 3D) video. It aims to advance critical discourse and design knowledge surrounding volumetric video and other emerging forms of hybrid captured media, within videogames and related immersive experiences. VVV is a multi-institution collaboration between experimental game designer Dr. Cindy Poremba (OCAD University), game historian Dr. Carl Therrien (Université de Montréal), and Prof. Nicolas Hesler (Sheridan College); in partnership with Scatter, the engineers of the volumetric video platform DepthKit.
PhD Interdisciplinary Humanities
Type: Graduate Studies
Concordia University
MASc Interactive Arts
Type: School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Simon Fraser University - Surrey
BA, Rhetoric and Professional Writing (New Media Specialization)
Type: English
University of Waterloo
Associate Professor
Type: Digital Futures
OCAD University
Interim Graduate Program Director, Digital Futures
Type: School of Graduate Studies
OCAD University