what/who/why/how is "game library: radio show?"
As a trained facilitator and teacher, we facilitate conversations with developers in the radio show "GAME LIBRARY" to understand the ways in which they transgress videogame boundaries as well as critique societal norms to imagine alternative futures.
We serve and work alongside independent videogame developers, who translate social justice into pixelated videogames experiences with deep narratives that encourage conversations around colonialization, liberation, rebellion, discrimination, and sexuality. We notice how videogames can ask the players questions to unmask the dominant logics as well as imagine beyond them.
The spirit of storytelling is interwoven in our project as we move from the conversations with independent game developers to creating videogames to hosting
a Game Jam (thereby, extending the "play" to engage with multiple communities to learn about just tech via videogames). Our storytelling is inspired by
critical race theorist, Professor Derrick Bell, who spoke about the role of stories in teaching about race:
"I prefer using stories as a means of communicating views to those who hold very different views on the emotionally charged subject of race. People enjoy
stories and will often suspend their beliefs, listen to the story, and then compare their views, not with mine, but with those expressed in the story."
Videogames are vehicle for stories. We seek to open conversations, build relationships as well as dream of technological just experiences not confined to domination. We will continue to engage in multiple modalities for accessibility to continue live outside the lines that attempt to discipline us as Dr. Christina Sharpe writes "to thinking along the lines that reinscribe our own annihilation;" thus, living outside the lines, we have conversations, share stories, and play videogames to collectively imagine praxis of liberation.