Project Leads

Jason Lewis

Jason Lewis is a co-primary investigator for AbTeC. His research/creation practice revolves around experiments in visual language, text and typography, with a core interest in how the deep structure of digital media can be used to create innovative forms of expression. He founded Obx Laboratory for Experimental Media, where he directs research/creation projects in digital texts, systems for creative use of mobile technology, alternative interfaces for live performance and the use of desktop virtual reality to assist Aboriginal communities in preserving, interpreting and communicating cultural histories. He is currently an Associate Professor of Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. www.obxlabs.net
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Skawennati Tricia Fragnito

Skawennati Tricia Fragnito is the Network Coordinator and Community Liaison for Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC). She is also Artist-at-Large with Urban Shaman gallery, as well as an independent curator, and occaisional writer. Though she has battled and vanquished past addictions to Tetris and SSX Snowboarding, she considers herself new to the gaming world. www.skawennati.net
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Celia Pearce
Since 1983, Celia Pearce has worked as an interactive media and game designer, artist, researcher and teacher. She is the author of The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution (Macmillan, 1997), as well as other writings on game design and culture. Since 1998, she has worked as academic researcher and teacher, and is co-founder of Ludica women's game collective. She currently holds an appointment as Assistant Professor in the School of Literature, Communication & Culture, at the Georgia Institute of Technology where she directs the Emergent Game Group in the Experimental Game Lab. egl.gatech.edu
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Project Team

Steve Loft
Steven Loft is a Mohawk of the Six Nations. He is a curator, writer and media artist. Loft has recently been named as the first Aboriginal Curator-In-Residence at the National Gallery of Canada. He was formerly the Director of the Urban Shaman Gallery (Winnipeg), First Nations Curator at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and Artistic Director of the Native Indian/Inuit Photographers' Association. He has written extensively on First Nations art and aesthetics for various magazines, catalogues and arts publications. Loft co-edited Transference, Technology, Tradition: Aboriginal Media and New Media Art, published by the Banff Centre Press in 2005. His video works, which include 2510037901, TAX THIS! And Out of the Darkness have been screened at festivals and galleries across Canada and internationally.

He promises to be as pompous and self important in person as this bio makes him out to be.

www.urbanshaman.org
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Richard Van Camp

Richard Van Camp is a proud member of the Dogrib (Tlicho) www.nativewiki.org Nation from Fort Smith, NWT, Canada. A graduate of the En'owkin International School of Writing, the University of Victoria's Creative Writing BFA Program, and the Master's Degree in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, Richard currently teaches Creative Writing for Aboriginal Students at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. He is also CBC Radio's Writer in Residence for their North by Northwest Program.

Richard's poems, short stories and novellas have been published in anthologies and journals since 1992. Three of his short stories from Angel Wing Splash Pattern, "Mermaids", "Sky Burial" and "The Night Charles Bukowski Died" have been narrated by Cree actor Ben Cardinal and broadcast nationally as radio dramas on CBC. Richard wrote for CBC's North of 60 television show for two months under their Writer Internship Program and was a script and cultural consultant with them for four seasons. He recently cowrote the short movie "The Promise" with Kent Williams and Jason Alexander of Neohaus Filmworks.
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Loretta Todd
Filmmaker Loretta Todd (Métis/Cree) meshes expressionistic footage with more traditional nonfiction storytelling elements to create original documentaries. Her first feature-length documentary, The Learning Path, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Forgotten Warriors won Best Documentary at the American Indian Film Festival, Best History Award at Hot Docs, and was nominated for a Genie Award. Todd received a Special Honouring and Screening Retrospective at the 2000 ImagineNATIVE Media Arts Festival. In 1998 she won the Taos Mountain Award for lifetime achievement from the Taos Talking Picture Festival. She was instrumental in establishing the Aboriginal Arts Program at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta, and teaches critical and technical courses on cinema for organizations such as the Chief Dan George Foundation. Todd has participated in the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab, and in 1996 received a fellowship from New York University's Center for Media, Culture, and History, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Todd studied film at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. She was born in Edmonton, Alberta.
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Current Research Assistants

Beth Aileen Lameman

Beth Aileen Lameman is an Anishinaabe and Metis PhD student in Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. She merges the career paths of an industry game writer, journalist, and academic. www.bethaileen.com
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Bea Parsons

"I am a Cree woman, born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I recently completed my BFA in Art Education at Concordia University, Montreal. I have been assisting with workshop preparations for the Skins Project for AbTeC, as well as production on TimeTraveller™, a machinima-based movie in Second Life!"
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Maroussia Lévesque

Maroussia completed a BA in Computation Arts. Her work has been published in Le Devoir and installed in an airport. Her investigations – formal and guerilla – revolve around how to change the status quo. Her means include critical theory, grassroots organizations, law, journalism and politics. Maroussia is learning her fifth language, and counting. www.elaborate.ca
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Raed Moussa
While completing his degree in Computational Arts at the University of Concordia, Raed is a designer for Obx Labs and AbTec. His interest lies in the possibilities to cross the boundaries between uncommon media. Recent projects include "responsive furry creation" that emanate purring sounds or nervous actions, and grand performances involving food and human bonding. Raed enjoys exploring themes that relate to childhood, nostalgia, and human interaction through different societies and through growth. He is a gentle artist with a strong conviction, love and him, and he will love you.
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Lysanne Bellemare

Lysanne obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts with distinction from University Concordia (Montreal) in Digital Image/Sound and the Fine Arts in 2008. She is currently enrolled at the Academy of the Visual Arts, in Leipzig, Germany, for a Diplom in Graphic Design / Book arts. Her work includes illustration, book-making, and installations, and ranges from client-based work to self-initiated projects. She's been working with Jason Lewis as a research assistant and graphic designer since fall 2005.
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Morgan Kennedy
Morgan Kennedy is a digital games researcher, writer, and former volunteer firefighter. His research and writing focuses on the social and business aspects of the videogame industry. He completed his Bachelor's Degree in Social Marketing at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachussetts and recently finished a Graduate Certificate in Digital Design at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. Currently he is a researcher at Obx Labs and coordinator for the new Technoculture, Art and Games initiative at Hexagram-Concordia.
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Nancy Elizabeth Townsend

Nancy Elizabeth Townsend is currently studying in her third year at Concordia as a Computation Arts major with a minor in Business Administration. She is a 3D artist (modeler and animator) who works in contracts ranging from experimental films to game modification. She has just recently joined the AbTec group as both a projectcoordinator and 3D modeler.
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Cassandra Lacombe

I am a 3rd year student in the major of Computation Arts at Concordia University. I like to have a broad knowledge in many spheres of computer science and computation arts. As the media invades more and more our daily lives, I would like to ride the wave and be part of what the future will become. So far, I am still in the exploration of the possibilities that this field has to offer. Yet, I would like to take advantage of the interactive part of the new technologies. Thus, my goal would be to work in the video game industry.
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Mohannad Al-Khatib

Mohannad is in his final year of Computation Arts at Concordia University. His passion is 3D creature development. Over the past few years he has worked on a variety of gaming projects as a modeler, digital sculptor, and texture artist. Mohannad grew up in Saudi Arabia where Art is highly unappreciated; however, this fact allowed him to independently develop his own unique style which is visible throughout his work.
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Walter Scott

Attending Concordia for a B.F.A in Studio Arts, with a special interest in Print Media. I'm a research assistant specializing in the graphic design. In my free time I enjoy making posters for punk/psych shows, and watching TMZ.
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Angela Gabereau

Angela Gabereau is majoring in Computaional Arts and Computer Science at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec. Her areas of interest include fine arts, aesthetic programming, AI, cognitive science, mathematics, philosophy, philosophy of science, feminism, feminist science studies, post-colonial theory, science fiction and gong-fu.
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Charlotte Fisher

Charlotte is in her third year studying a specialization in Computation Arts, and a minor in Music. As a transfer student from the Studio Arts program at Concordia, most of her training is in the realm of tangible media, painting and drawing being her specialty. Since entering the Computation Arts program, the 3D world has become her new passion. A 3D modeler and texturer, her main interest is in games, believing it is an area in which art does not receive adequate recognition from the art world, as it is still being shunned by many highbrow organisations.
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Sahar Homami

Sahar Homami is currently in her last year of Computation Arts at Concordia University. She has spent the last 2 years specializing in 3D design and digital video creation. Her passion is 3D modeling, texturing, animating and post production. Currently she is participating in a number of projects to create video games and digital videos, out of which one is the TimeTraveller™ project at OBX labs.
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Project Affiliates

Katherine Isbister

Katherine is Director of the Games Research Lab at Rensselaer (RPI), where she has worked to build an undergraduate major in game design, as well as a robust program of games-related research. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford, with a focus on using ideas from social psychology to design better, more effective interactive characters. Katherine recently completed a book entitled: Better Game Characters by Design: A Psychological Approach, which was nominated for a Game Developer Magazine Front Line award in 2006. www.katherineinterface.com
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Bart Simon
Bart Simon is associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. With a background in science and technology studies and cultural sociology, Bart's current research focuses on digital game cultures, post-humanism, surveillance and popular technocultures. He is the principle investigator of SSHRC and FQRSC funded projects on "the social worlds of digital games" and is the director of GameCode, a game studies research group in Montreal. www.gamecode.ca
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