I wrote the cover story for the Spring 2010 issue of Columbia College’s DEMO Magazine. The feature documents two Columbia professors who are using video games to approach social issues, in very different ways. Professor David Gerden’s CONSTRUCT project attempts to bridge bleeding-edge video game research and behavioral science, while Mindy Faber’s Open Youth Projects utilizes gaming as a tool for community outreach:

“This is like the quarter-million-dollar table,” says Columbia professor David Gerding, sitting in front of a modest conference table outfitted with six laptops that are connected to optical sensors. As Gerding speaks, an avatar of his face appears on the laptop screen before him. A click of a button, and beams of light appear to radiate from the eyes of his digital self. “It’s detecting the iris. Can you see the laser beams coming out of my eyes? It’s like Blade Runner!”

In a modest conference room in Columbia College’s Department of Interactive Arts and Media (IAM), we’ve stepped into what could pass as a set from the ’80s sci-fi classic. It’s a futuristic space where individuals interact on screen as small sensors track their eye movements, pupil dilation, and even facial expressions, all in the service of teaching machines to understand how people communicate and collaborate with one another.

Read the entire article at the DEMO site.

Photo by Drew Reynolds