The presentation will cover two aspects of Maia Engeli's work:
In the first part different online learning environments, developed for CAAD, IT and New Media courses at ETH Zürich, will be presented and the underlying principles will be discussed. These environments for learning and creative collaboration are designed such that that ideas can flow and learning becomes a collaborative process.
The second part is about aesthetic explorations of the first-person shooter game Unreal Tournament. Examples from different workshops will serve to demonstrate the possibilities of a purposeful exploitation of the game’s editor. These workshops were taught at architecture, art, and media design departments in Europe and to an activist group in Albania. Various kinds of ‘maps’ for the shooter game were created and meaning formulated depending on the goal of the learning process.
Biographical note: Maia Engeli works as an independent researcher in the area of information architecture and she teaches level editing for first-person shooter games; from 1996 to 2002 she was Assistant Professor and from 1998-2002 acting head of the chair for Architecture and CAAD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland. In 2001 she published the book "Bits and Spaces" and in 2000 the book "Digital Stories - The Poetics of Communication". Website: http://maia.enge.li/